A game of death and life
by DatXeno91
Summary: Death sometimes is deserved. Sometimes we seek for it. Sometimes it finds us. What if someone met it for a simple accident? Follow Daniel in his quest in a new and unknown world, forced to survive while seeking for a new purpose. (A 'the Gamer'-style story. Some sorta-dark content inside. rated T for now, but might raise to M if I get too descriptive.) DEAD. REWRITE IS UP!
1. New places, new problems

**Welcome!**

 **This is the tutorial for the 'Gamer' system. Please enter name, age, and birth day.**

 **Name: _xxx**

 **Surname: _xxx**

 **Age: _x**

 **Birthday: _x/xx/xxxx**

"Uhh... The fuck? Why is there a blue floating screen in front of my eyes? And why is it the only thing I can see?!"

As I was starting to panic, a wave of calmness washed over me, steadying my erratic breath, and letting me analyze my situation with more care.

"Alright. Let's think. Last thing I remember is going to bed after the party, and now I'm here. Since I don't remember waking up, I believe it is safe to assume this is a dream."

 ***ding***

 **You have been selected for the testing of a new retribution system designed specifically for people dead without sin. Further info can be found in the help section.**

"Wait. A retribution for people dead? Does that mean I died in my sleep?!"

 ***ding***

 **Trough attentive and logical thought, you have gained 1 WIS!**

"OH FUCK OFF!" I yelled in exasperation, and sat down onto the nonexistent ground to calm myself.

An unknown amount of time later, I rose back to my feet, still somewhat shaken up, but good enough to go on. I looked back at the window in front of me, and filled the blanks using a holographic keyboard underneath the box.

 **Name: Daniel_**

 **Surname: Samuels_**

 **Age: 16**

 **Birthday: 03/11/2001**

Once I pressed the check on the lower right corner of the screen, it disappeared, replaced by another one:

 **Thank you for the information. Now, let's go over the basic commands to navigate the system. Try saying or thinking 'status'.**

Let's give it a try. Status.

As I finished my line of thought, the screen in front of me blinked out of existance, to be replaced with another one, this one easily as big as the whole top half of my body. I could see my stat points on it, and some other specifics:

 **Daniel Samuels**

 **The gamer**

 **Lv: 1 (0/20 EXP)**

 **HP: 150/150 (+2.0/s)**

 **MP: 180/180 (+2.6/s)**

 **STR: 6**

 **DEX: 4**

 **VIT: 5**

 **INT: 8**

 **WIS: 8**

 **LUK: 5**

 **Stat points: 0**

While I studied my stats, I came to the conclusion that they were decided by my actual traits, as I was more the type of 'brains over brawn', even tough I naturally had a powerful build. Though, having something and knowing how to use it are two different things.

While stuck in my musings, a new window had popped up in front of my stats:

 **These are some nice stats for a beginner, but how about we make them a little better? Here's some points to spend however you prefer!**

Once again I pressed the check box, and looking back at my stats, I saw that I now had ten points to spend. After giving it some thought, I chose to split them like this:

 **STR: 6**

 **DEX: 4+4=8**

 **VIT: 5+2=7**

 **INT: 8+2=10**

 **WIS: 8**

 **LUK: 5+2=7**

Pressing the check, I felt a twinge in the back of my mind, and my body, or whatever could be called my body right now, felt way more limber than before, and also somewhat more resistant.

While I was basking in the nice feeling, a new window popped up:

 **Now that you're familiar with the status window, let's check your inventory. Think or say 'close' to close a window, and think or say 'inventory' to access your inventory.**

Once I followed the instructions, my inventory window appeared: it seemed manageable, even tough it had only ten cases, plus five more stationed next to a full-body picture of me, which I supposed were for the equipment.

A cursory glance over my picture showed me that I hadn't changed at all: same short brown hair with matching eyes, same over-average height, and same black-rimmed glasses.

 ***ding***

 **Pretty empty, huh? Don't worry, you'll get some things to start with later. For now, let's look at your skills. You understand how to do this by now, right?**

I rolled my eyes at the last part, but kept my mouth shut and opened the skill window. The classical two were there, and nothing more.

 **Gamer's body (passive) Lv: Max**

 **The user's body follows the rules of an RPG, thus all the HP must be reduced to zero in order to recieve physical wounds. You won't get sick, and any wound will be fixed by sleeping in a bed.**

 **Gamer's mind (passive) Lv: Max**

 **Lets the user stay calm in almost any condition, and blocks mental debuffs like confusion, fear, etc. Your mind will always work as if you just woke up, annullating mental fatigue.**

This was as expected, I guess. I really hope this is all, 'cause I'm getting really sick of this.

Closing the window, I let out a breath of relief, as a new, and final, window appeared in existance.

 ***ding***

 **Those were all the basic commands for this tutorial. We hope you enjoy your new life, but be mindful: once you die you will have to start again from scratch, so don't be reckless! Here's a little parting gift.**

 **You obtained:**

 **x1 iron sword**

 **x1 water pitcher (large)**

 **x1 shortbow**

 **x20 wooden arrows**

Well, that wasn't ominous at all. Still, I wonder where am I going. I mean, I did read a couple 'Gamer' fanfics, but living one was quite of aa mindfuck. Gotta thank **Gamer's mind** for keeping me coherent. Tough, I have one question. How in the hell did I die?

Hopefully I will know one day, but for now I guess it doesn't matter much. Oh, look. A bright shining light is in front of me. Might as well walk towards it, what could go wrong?

And, just as I lifted my foot to start walking, I started falling. Everything around me seemed to break like glass, and whitin a couple seconds of falling, the pitch black reality around me gave place to an absolutely breathtaking scenery.

I admired the place for a total of 0.1 seconds, before returning to screaming my head off. Just before slamming into whatever was under me, I looked up at the sky and hollered:

"FUCK YOU MURPHY!"

.

..

...

Cold.

I'm so fucking cold.

And I'm wet.

And there's something moving against me.

Seriously, where the fuck am I?

As I groggily opened my eyes, water splashed my face, waking me up completely. Once I sat up, I started glancing around, taking in account my surroundings.

I found myself sitting at the shoreline of a cristalline river, with fish flashing around here and there. Behind me I saw the beginning of a forest, but that wasn't what caught my attention. What did was the tip of a sword pointed right at my face.

It took all my focus not to let loose another scream, but thankfully **Gamer's mind** took care of that. Once I turned my focus onto the sword, I also noticed the hand holding it, and by extent also the person at the other hand.

Altough, the hand was way too furry to belong to a human, and so was the rest of the arm attached to it. My brain caught up with me in the moment I looked up at the face of the offender. He wasn't human.

What was in front of me was something reminiscent of a feline, but with a humanlike build. His fur was ash grey, with black spots on the tip of his ears, fingers and tail. I just noticed he was saying something, but I hadn't heard anything.

"-In this place, ape?"

I had barely managed to catch the end of his question, but I did hear what he called me. Being called an ape nagged at me a bit, but I chose not to show it and said in a flat voice:

"Excuse me, what did you say? I wasn't paying much attention."

The feline snorted at that, and glared at me with so much hate I thought he was gonna behead me for that. Instead, he settled for saying:

"I'll make it easy for your small brain: Why. Are. You. Here."

This prick is seriously getting on my nerves. Once I level up a little, I'll show him.

"I just so happen to have found myself here with no knowledge of my whereabouts, so if you would have a map of the zone, or know of a good observation point, I would be most glad."

I finished my tirade with a slight smirk breaking my otherwise perfect poker face.

My wannabe captor stared at me with a deadpan look for a couple seconds, before stating in a matching voice:

"So, you're saying you're lost. And you expect me to believe it?"

I drew a long sigh, and shook my head. It seems like it's not gonna be easy. Then again, it never is.

"Alright, fine. Don't believe me if you don't want to, but I still need to find my way. So... I'll be leaving now."

Then, I got up and tried walking away. But the guy had other ideas, for he extended his arm to point his sword at me again and growled:

"Don't even think about it. You are coming with me. I don't know what you are up to, but I know for sure that you apes aren't to be trusted."

There he goes again with calling me an ape. Still, if he has a name for my kind, maybe I could find some, and get them to help me. Then again, I know nothing of this place, so I should wait until I have some form of context before choosing what to do. I guess I'll just follow this prick for a while. Might get to turn him on my side, if I play my cards right.

 ***ding***

 **Trough attentive and logical thought, you have gained 1 WIS!**

Seems like the system agrees.

"Alright then. Lead the way."

The still nameless feline gave a light chuckle, before saying in a cold voice:

"Yeah, no. I'm not stupid. You're going to walk in front of me."

And with that, he started pushing the tip of his sword on my back, guiding me towards a seemingly random direction.

We spent around ten minutes like that, with him directing me, and me keeping one eye in front of me, while the other skimmed the different uses for the System. I happened to find a map, which had in detail only the zone around where I woke up and around a hundred meters upstream, possibly from where I landed to where the feline found me, plus the trail we followed.

While we walked I got another classic skill: **Observe**. I used it onto whatever I saw that was different then what was back home, also my captor. What came up was:

 **Cyrus Alastor**

 **Seeker of vengeance**

 **Ceetah**

 **Lv: 28**

 **Hp: 3140/3140**

 **Mp: 3070/3070**

 **STR: 37**

 **DEX: 51**

 **VIT: 34**

 **INT: 27**

 **WIS: 59**

 **LUK: 14**

 **Born from a female with no mate, Cyrus was forced to watch as his mother was executed in front of him when he was only 8, and since then he has been training to avenge his mother by making his father pay.**

That's some deep shit, and I'm kinda sorry for him, but I can't say anything about it without having to explain my ability. For now I should better keep quiet and become strong enough to defend myself before giving others a reason to attack me.

 ***ding***

 **Trough attentive and logical thought, you gained 1 WIS!**

Again, I'm right.

I kept quiet for the rest of the trip, but it seemed that we wouldn't reach anywhere before nightfall. Appearently Cyrus thought so too, for he chose to tie my hands to a tree, and started setting up a bonfire.

The asshole didn't even bother thinking about me, since he finished his dinner and proceeded to lay down to sleep. Lucky me, **Gamer's body** lets me work without sleep nor food.

While I was trying to free myself, I meditated onto how to build my fighting style. I have my sword, if I have to get in close and personal, and INT and WIS are pretty hard to train either way. I would love to use magic nonetheless, but I suppose that will have to wait for now. All in all, I guess I could go for a warrior as of now, and a spellblade in the long run. The bow could be useful too, but then again, magic can replace it easily enough. Now that that's decided, how do I get rid of this rope?

As I started going through different possibilities, my mind rewinded itself a little to give me a metaphorical slap. A spell. Of fucking course.

So I started concentrating, to feel the mana inside me as it flowed, and tried to redirect it in my hand to do... something.

After a couple minutes doing so, I finally got what I wanted:

 ***ding***

 **You have created a new skill!**

 **An ability to manipulate mana, 'Mana affinity' has been created!**

 **Mana affinity (passive) Lv: 1 (00.0%)**

 **Mana is the energy of all living beings. You are able to draw that power from your reserves and plasm it to your desire.**

 **+10% damage to magical attacks**

 **-10% cost to magical attacks**

Nice. That will definitely come in useful.

I then concentrated again into moving the mana inside me to my hands, and the result was kinda what I expected: a light glow encompassed my hands, while I could feel the raw energy and heat inside of them. After a couple seconds of studying the phenomenon, I started working on the mana, sharpening and condensing it, until...

 ***ding***

 **You have created a new skill!**

 **An ability to manipulate mana into a certain form: 'Mana claw' has been created!**

 **Mana claw (active) Lv: 1 (00.0%)**

 **Manipulating mana into a solid form, you can encompass your hands into magical claws!**

 **25 Mp to activate**

 **5 Mp/second to sustain**

 **+5% STR**

That's quite costly, but then again, with the WIS increase I got, plus my natural regeneration, I only lose 1 Mp per second. Let's get to work!

And thus, after a minute or so of cutting, I managed to free myself. Glancing back, I noticed that I left a lot of scratches onto the bark, while the rope was still relatively intact. With my pride as an escape artist wounded, I decided to leave the place.

I was still walking around, seemingly aimlessly, but I had my map open and was keeping tabs on where I was going. While walking, I had experimented with my mana a bit more, and managed to acquire a new skill:

 **Enhancement (active & passive) Lv: 3 (14.7%)**

 **Empowering your body with mana, you can surpass your normal limits.**

 **27 Mp to activate**

 **5 Mp/second to sustain**

 **+12% to all physical stats**

 **+6% Hp regen**

 **+6% Mp regen**

This skill started with 30 Mp to activate at first, but it lowered the cost by 1 for level, plus with the enhanced Mp regen, I managed to keep it up for a while more that expected. Now with the boost active my stats would be:

 **Lv: 1 (0/20 Xp)**

 **Hp: 170/170 (+3.6/s)**

 **Mp: 200/200 (+3.1/s)**

 **STR: 6 (6.7)**

 **DEX: 8 (8.9)**

 **VIT: 7 (7.8)**

 **INT: 10**

 **WIS: 10**

 **LUK: 7**

While it could be way worse, I had to figure out a way to increase my power quickly. My best bet would be to level up, of course, but I had the feeling that killing pretty much anything here would be kinda hard right now. So, either I would get lucky, or I would have to increase my stats in the old-fashioned way: training.

A snapping twig brought me out of my reverie, and quickly I took my sword out of my inventory. In the back of my mind I took note I hadn't yet checked the rest of my equipment. I filed away that information for later, and gave my full attention to my surroundings.

Slowly, one by one, my pursuers made themselves known: wolves. Not even the normal kind, but they looked even more threatening than any normal wolf. A quick observe around gave me an idea of what I was dealing with.

They were called 'Lycan wolves' and their levels averaged from three to five, indicating they were very young, with the alpha being at level eight. The fight was going to get hetic, I could tell this much. Luckily, one of them, or two at most, should be enough to give me a level up. So I had some way to recover somewhat.

While I was thinking that, I tried to keep my attention onto all of them at once. Supported by **Gamer's mind** and my sheer primal instinct, I noticed in time the wolf at my 5 lunging at me. I made a baseball slide underneath it, and proceeded to shove my sword in its belly. It landed stumbling, and I took the chace to stomp on its back and plunge my sword in the back of its neck.

 **+16 Xp**

Not enough, but it's still good.

The smaller four that remained seemed hesitant, but nonetheless two of them tried to flank me from both sides. I could feel them there, but kept my eyes on the bigger one, to be safe.

Once I could feel the two around me start to move, I took a leap back and let them run into each other at the last moment. Once they went down, a couple strikes were all that I needed to end them.

 **+18 Xp**

 **Level up!**

 **+16 Xp**

And here we go. Three more to go.

The alpha seemed pretty furious at this point, and decided to address the matter personally. Unluckly for me, this guy was both smarter and stronger, predicting where I was going to dodge and intercepting me.

The blow was so powerful that it slammed me into a tree.

 **-41 Hp**

I barely managed to avoid his next attack rolling out of the way, and thankfully his claws got stuck in the bark, giving me a chance to get up and make some distance between us.

My mind was going into overdrive trying to come up with a way to kill this fucker, until I stumbled upon a plan. It was half-baked, and a terrible idea, but it was my best bet.

I positioned myself so that I was between the alpha and a tree a meter and half behind me. Once it freed itself, it turned back to face me, and gave a loud growl, before running towards me again. Once it noticed where I was leading it, it stopped just short of hitting the tree. Too bad I expected that. In the meantime, I had already gotten two meters and half up the tree, before kicking off with both legs and landing on its back. Once there, it was all a job of hack n'slash with my **Mana claws** , before it finally gave out and died.

 **+28 Xp**

 **Level up!**

As I looked around, I noticed the remaining two small ones had left sometimes during the fight, and the bodies of the others weren't here either. In their place were some small pouches, containing freaking GEMS! I don't know if they are used as currency or whatever here, but this is awesome!

After calming myself down a little, I glanced towards the dead alpha, to notice it had turned to dust, and was being blown away in the nightly breeze, leaving behind a slightly bigger pouch, again full of gems, and a fang. I immediately **Observed** the fang:

 **Lycan alpha's fang**

 **Grade: rare**

 **The name is self-explainatory. It doesn't value much, but it's a nice trophy.**

Whoa there! Since when did my power get this sarcastic?

I just looked at the fang a little more before slipping it in my inventory. I tried to put also the bags inside, but I couldn't see them in the window. After messing around a little, I noticed a counter next to my name, wich said:

 **G: 573**

I tried touching it, and one of the bags got out from it. At the very least that proves that these are the currency here.

I looked up at the sky, to find out that I just had a couple hours more before dawn. I checked once more my stats and skills before continuing onwards.

 **Daniel Samuels**

 **G: 573**

 **Lv: 3 (18/60 Xp)**

 **Hp: 370/370 (+4.6/s)**

 **Mp: 400/400 (+5.3/s)**

 **STR: 6 (6.7)**

 **DEX: 8 (8.9)**

 **VIT: 7 (7.8)**

 **INT: 10**

 **WIS: 10**

 **LUK: 7**

 **Stat points: 10**

 **Well, here we go! This is Xeno here with the first chapter of our new story! I noticed there weren't many (if any at all) 'the Gamer' stories on this part of FanFiction, so I chose to do it for myself. So, hope you enjoy, follow, review, and more importantly: IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT NO ONE IS TELLING YOU TO READ IT. IF YOU WANT TO POINT OUT PROBLEMS OR OPINIONS BE POLITE ABOUT IT. NO ONE COMES HERE TO BE INSULTED.**

 **p.s. I don't own 'the Gamer'. Just to be safe. But then again, we are on** _ **Fan**_ **Fiction. No one here owns anything exept our stories.**

 **p.p.s. If you understand the math behind the Hp and Mp regeration rates, you win a cookie.**


	2. The wolf slayer

**So, everyone! Xeno's back with another chapter for 'A game of death and life'! Woohoo and all that. Now, I have a couple things to say: 1, thanks so much to everyone for taking their time reading this. It really means a lot to me. 2, I have taken account of the mishap with the verbs, and I am trying to avoid doing it anymore. 3, I own nor 'the Gamer' nor 'The legend of Spyro'. And 4...nothing more than the usual: favorite, follow, review and enjoy. Plus I like the number four.**

The forest seemed to go on endlessly, and the only sounds to keep me company were the fluttering of wings, the chirping birds and my own heavy footsteps. I had decided that this was a moment as good as any to start training, so I started running a couple hours earlier, and my reward were 3 points in DEX and 1 in VIT.

I didn't have other problems after my encounter with the Lycans, and probably it might be because I was still smelling of blood. My abilities were working overtime to keep me from puking at the smell, so I really was in need of a bath. I tried so hard to keep myself from thinking about it, that I even gained a skill from it.

 **Focus (passive) Lv: 5 (71.5%)**

 **Keeping your mind from straying, you can focus more easily onto a certain task.**

 **+15% chance to stun an enemy with a direct hit.**

 **+7% efficency to all active skills.**

While it wasn't the most powerful skill around, it was definitely helping me in that moment. In the meantime I had also kept **Enhancement** active, to the point where it leveled up some.

 **Enhancement (active & passive) Lv: 6 (32.1%)**

 **Empowering your body with mana, you can surpass your normal limits.**

 **24 Mp to activate**

 **5 Mp/second to sustain**

 **+15% to all physical stats**

 **+8% Hp regen**

 **+8% Mp regen**

This skill looked like it would be my most useful one up to then, with the one I unwillingly created while keeping track of the wolves coming close second.

 **Radar (passive) Lv: 4 (73.9%)**

 **By sharpening your hearing, you can sense movements around you, and react accordingly.**

 **+4% to hearing**

 **Max range: 2 meters**

While it might not seem much, it adds 1% to my hearing plus half a meter of range every level, so if I got it at around level 20, I would already be able to hear what happens around me in a range of 10 meters, which is very useful.

Still, I was missing out on active skills, for the only one I had was **Mana claw** , and even tough it is nice, I needed also some variety, in case I would have fought enemies that were resistant to physical attacks.

I was contemplating the chance of creating some basic elemental spells, when I found myself nearing the edge of the forest. I slowed down my sprint to a slight jog, and then to a walk in case I would find someone nearby.

Peeking from behind a tree, I found what seemed to be a small village at around two hundred meters northwest of my location, but I couldn't see any details from this distance since I had lost my glasses while I flowed down the river, so I chose to get closer, but without abandoning the safety of the trees.

After around ten minutes of sneaking around the edge of the forest, I managed to restrict my distance from the village to around twenty-five meters. In the process of doing that I also gained the skill **Sneak** :

 **Sneak (passive & active) Lv: 2 (84.2%)**

 **You are able to avoid detection and slip away unnoticed by your enemies.**

 **-50% movement speed.**

 **-6% chance of being detected.**

Normally it would have been easy for me to see at such a relatively short distance, but again, I didn't have my glasses, thus I couldn't focus my eyesight far enough. I didn't even want to risk stepping out of my cover, so I chose to turn to my go-to problem fixer: magic. Thus I started concentrating magic in my eyes to improve my eyesight, and the result was:

 **Falcon's eye (active) Lv: 1 (00.0%)**

 **Concentrating mana in your eyes, you can enhance the clarity and sharpness of your sight to astounding levels.**

 **50 Mp/second to maintain**

 **Max zoom: x1.5**

The effect of the skill caused the edges of my vision to blur, but my focus seemed way closer, even though I could still percieve the distance it was at.

I was a tad disappointed for the very high cost required for such a low-effect boost. Hopefully, it would become more useful at later levels, and thus I started working on it. The high cost forced me to recover around every ten seconds, progressing slowly. By nightfall I had managed to bring it up by five levels, and while it might not have seemed like much, now I could see twice as far as normal, and I could keep it up for around twelve seconds.

I chose I should seek for a safe spot to finally start training somewhat, and headed deeper into the forest again. Studying my map, I finally arrived to a nice point: it was a small clearing with a branch of the main river flowing a bit to the side. I sat crosslegged in the middle of the clearing, and started working on the first thing on my list: Instant Dungeons.

 _ **Info time with Xeno: Instant Dungeons, also called ID, are a secondary layer to reality crafted with magic. Everything in the area is copied into the ID, except for living beings and the objects in contact with them. Anything done in an ID has no repercussions on the real world, since it is merely a copy.**_

Willing my mana to separate the clearing from reality, I sent it out of me in all directions, and was greeted by a ripple all around me, the feel of a big chunk of mana leaving my body, and a new skill window.

 **You created a new skill!**

 **A skill for fabricating Instant Dungeons (ID) has been created!**

 **Create ID (active) Lv: 1 (10.0%)**

 **Covering the area around you with mana, you are able to create an alternate reality separated from everything. Higher levels will allow to modify the environment.**

 **150 Mp per use.**

 **Disponible ID:**

 **Empty**

Now, the cost was quite high, but with time it should become bearable enough. After waiting for my reserves to replenish, I started working again with my magic some more. Concentrating on the air in front of me, I poured energy into it to the point of igniting it. Plasming the burning mana, I compressed it to thee point of a fireball slightly bigger than my fist. I then let it fly at one of the trees surrounding me, effectively blowing up a sizeable chunk of the trunk, with a scorch that extended to the closest trees.

With **Fireball** at the ready, I started going over the others, and in short order I had:

 **Fireball (active) Lv: 3 (15.7%)**

 **Exciting the molecules of concentrated air, you can make it combust in a powerful fireball.**

 **10 Mp per use**

 **6% chance of setting on fire the target**

 **AOE inflicts 25% of total damage**

 **.**

 **Thunder (active) Lv: 3 (09.3%)**

 **Modifying air on atomic level you can create elecrical discharges.**

 **10 Mp per use**

 **6% chance of paralyzing the target**

 **25% chance to damage also nearby enemies**

 **.**

 **Frost (active) Lv: 3 (25.4%)**

 **Draining energy from the atoms of concentrated air, you can transform it in a projectile that will freeze anything it touches.**

 **10 Mp per use**

 **6% chance of crippling frozen part**

 **AOE causes 25% of total damage**

 **.**

 **Aeroblade (active) Lv: 4 (16.8%)**

 **Condensing air in a sharp form, you can send blades made of wind at your enemy.**

 **10 Mp per use**

 **+6% speed**

 **Max blade width: 35 cm**

I chose to keep using **Aeroblade** for a little more, since the blades at level 1 were long only 10 centimeters, and were more cute than dangerous. Now, though, they were strong enough to cut branches as thick as my own arm with ease. Then, with my attack spells finally ready and still around three hours of night left, I started going over some basic workout motions: one hour of push-ups, one hour of sit-ups and lastly one last hour of running around aimlessly. All with pauses when needed, since I most definitely wasn't Saitama. Or at least, not yet.

Finally, I came back to my clearing, with a total gain of 5 STR, 2 DEX and 3 VIT. I was pretty happy. I cleaned myself up in the river, and since I was still in the ID, I didn't worry about what or who would drink the water. Finally, about half an hour after sunrise I was walking back to the village of the day before, stronger than before and more confident in my own abilities. Just so you know, this is how I looked like in that moment:

 **Daniel Samuels**

 **The Gamer**

 **G:** **573**

 **Lv: 3 (18/60 Xp)**

 **Hp: 410/410 (+5.7/s)**

 **Mp: 400/400 (+5.5/s)**

 **STR: 11 (13.1)**

 **DEX: 13 (15.5)**

 **VIT: 11 (13.1)**

 **INT: 10**

 **WIS: 10**

 **LUK: 7**

 **Stat points: 10**

Not too bad, right? Of course, there was still a LOT of things to do before I could call myself powerful, but I was feeling good with myself anyway.

Arrived at the edge of the forest, I activated my **Falcon's eye** once more, and started leveling up the skill while studying what I managed to see. The village in itself seemed pretty small, but I could notice a good amount of specks of color around, which I assumed were the villagers. As my skill leveled up, I couldn't help but start worrying: just what was I seeing? The beings that inhabited the village were as far as possible from humans, yet they were scary in their resemblance with us. I could see adults chatting in the market, young ones playing, and even a couple guards pacing around.

It took me a couple of minutes to catch up with what I was seeing: a village full of dragons. Yes, that's right. There were red ones, green ones, yellow ones, blue ones, a couple gray ones and I'm positive I saw also a brown one. I was starting to hyperventilate from the rush of emotions, but **Gamer's mind** kept me from going too deep in the hole. I was still panicking inside from the revelation, but I was still mostly coherent. I chose to call it a day, and moved back to the clearing I started calling my home. On the way, I tried to accept the fact that dragons existed, and I saw a village full of them.

Arriving at my patch of grass, I decided to do something I hadn't done in a while, and went to sleep. I chose a tree pretty high from the ground, and used the rope I 'borrowed' from the ceetah-Cyrus. His name was Cyrus. I repeated to myself:

"They are people, and deserve to be respected, regardless of how they treated you. So, you will use their names."

And, with that point made, I used the rope to tie myself to the tree, so I wouldn't risk falling down. Keeping my mind from going in weird tangents, I let sleep claim me.

"Come on, move it!"

"Slow down! We still have time before dinner!"

"Yea, but I wanna play!"

A bunch of voices yelling around woke me up from my well-deserved slumber with the same power of a bunch of bricks falling on my face. I would have fallen from the shock, if it weren't for the rope securely tied around my stomach. I untied my bindings, and stashed them in my **inventory** , before turning around and observing the clearing for intruders.

The evildoers in question were two young dragons, on which I used my **Observe** immediately. The bigger one was a light blue, and his status was:

 **Tundra Polar**

 **The brain**

 **Ice dragon**

 **Lv: 12**

 **Hp: 1340/1340**

 **Mp: 1560/1560**

 **STR: 16**

 **DEX: 23**

 **VIT: 14**

 **INT: 36**

 **WIS: 31**

 **LUK: 20**

 **Tundra is the elder of the Polar siblings, and while he chose not to follow the wish of his father to become a soldier, and decided to spend his time studying to become a scholar, he still makes it his sworn duty to protect his sister, now and ever.**

The other one instead was very energetic, as emphasized by her yellow color and status:

 **Star Polar**

 **The brawn**

 **Electric dragoness**

 **Lv: 10**

 **Hp: 1210/1210**

 **Mp:1130/1130**

 **STR: 20**

 **DEX: 24**

 **VIT: 21**

 **INT: 13**

 **WIS: 10**

 **LUK: 20**

 **Star is the younger of the Polar siblings, and while she chose not to follow the wish of her mother to become a scholar, and decided to train to be a soilder instead, she is still making it her sworn duty to protect her brother, now and ever.**

In the meantime I was reading their profiles, Star had roped Tundra into a game of tag, and they were running around the clearing, oblivious to my presence. Watching them was actually quite endearing, reminding myself of the time I used to spend with my own sister. Reminding me of her made me think back to the rest of my family, and made me wonder what were they doing then. Had they found out I was dead already? Did they make me a funeral yet? How many would have bothered to come? I chose to stop thinking about it, and just brought my focus back on the two young dragons under me.

While I was taking a stroll down memory lane, the two had gotten tired, and were resting under the tree where I was seating. Using my **Radar** skill, I managed to pick up to what they were saying:

"Shouldn't we get going? It's getting quite late, and I still have some work left to do at home."

"Killjoy. I want to stay some more. After all, this is our own spot. We haven't had the chance to come here in a long time."

"I know that just as well as you, but it so happens that if we get home late again dad will ground us again. I'd rather not get in trouble for that. Plus, that weird creature might still be lurking around."

"You mean the one they saw at the edge of the forest yesterday?"

"Yes, that one. Seems like it came around for another couple hours this morning, before leaving a little before noon. They are starting to increase security in the night shifts to be safe, but no one has even seen that being before. No wonder they're not even trying to catch it. After all, it might just be merely curious, just as well as being incredibly powerful and waiting for the moment to strike."

"We have dad watching out for us, there's nothing to worry about!"

"If you say so, sis. If you say so. Still, we should really get going. C'mon."

"Fine, fine, I'm coming. Coward"

I waited until they were out of sight before drawing a sigh of relief. Luckily they didn't notice me. Still, the problem remained that someone else did notice me, and they had known from the moment I got there the first time. What might have given me away? My smell, maybe? Was I careless and someone managed to get a look at me? Taking all in consideration, it didn't matter. After all, they were just weary. If I could get them on my side, I might have some powerful allies. After all, if their children were this powerful, who knew how strong their soldiers were? Then again, following that logic, making them my enemies would not have been a good idea.

 ***ding***

 **Through attentive and logical thinking, you have gained 1 WIS!**

I was wondering where it went.

Sleeping was out of the question, at that point, thus I started training some more. After getting a couple hours of workout, my gains were: 2 STR, 1 DEX and 2 VIT. After resting a bit, I started wondering how could I increase my INT and WIS. All my thoughts came back to leveling up, but I had no idea on how to. I could definitely scrap hunting, since I could have really bad luck and find something like, fifly levels above me.

That left me with only one choice: IDs. Thus, with my course decided, I started the tedious work of grinding the skill.

After around an hour or so, I managed to make the skill level up, and what greeted me was:

 **Create ID (active) Lv: 2 (00.0%)**

 **Covering the area around you with mana, you are able to create an alternate reality separated from everything. Higher levels will allow to modify the environment.**

 **150 Mp per use.**

 **Disponible ID:**

 **Empty**

 **Lycan wolves**

I almost started dancing around for the excitement: I had an almost infinite supply of Lycans, ready to be slaughtered at my convenience.

Once I had recovered my mana, I created the **Lycan ID** , and got ready to kill. Nothing seemed different, but I could feel it in the air: there was danger all around me. I steeled my resolve and dashed in the forest, sword drawn and spells ready. The first wolf was fried with a bolt of **Thunder** , with the second being decapitated by an **Aeroblade** , followed suit by a third and fourth respectively frozen and impaled by my sword. This treatment went on for almost all night, until I had killed dozens of them, raising my level up to seven. I took then a second to admire my handiwork: the area around me was littered with small bags, trees burned, frozen or completely cut off. Then, satisfied with my work for the day, I started collecting the spoils of my enemies: a good bunch of thousands of gems.

Once I was done, I returned to my clearing and tried to break the ID: unfortunately, my attempt was cut short when a window appeared in front of me:

 **You cannot leave now. The Alpha Lycan is still around.**

Did that mean I would have been forced to kill a boss everytime I wanted to leave an ID full of enemies? That felt like bullshit. Nonetheless, I started going around, being on the lookout for the stronger wolf. The good news were that I didn't have to wait for long, for it had found me. The bad news were that it was nothing like the alpha I had fought before. This one easily towered above me, and was at level twenty. The only thing that I managed to say was:

"Crap."

As I dashed trough the forest, with tha Alpha easily keeping up. The only reason why I wasn't dead yet was that I kept throwing **Frost** at it, and I managed to stagger it a little. My mana reserves were getting lower and lower, so I had to come up with a plan soon. I knew that my skills weren't enough to overpower it, but maybe I could outsmart it. Pouring what mana I had left, I condensed my **Fireball** to the point where it became a really small star. I then covered my ears and threw it at the Alpha, and the effect was instantaneous: an absurdly loud bang was heard, and I closed my eyes just in time to avoid the flash of light that generated behind me. I put some distance between me and the wolf, before checking the danage I had done.

The Alpha was fumbling around dazed, constantly crashing into the trees around it. I glanced back at my mana reserves, and felt some confidence back, as I still had just a little bit more than a quarter of my power left. Sorting through the ideas in my head, I came up with the perfect way to finish this quickly. I called up my **Aeroblade** , and started working to make it sleeker, longer and sharper. With a couple seconds of work, a new skill was made.

 **Wind spear (active) Lv: 1 (00.0%)**

 **Focusing your mana into the air around you, you can craft spears made of thin air.**

 **20 Mp per use**

 **+10% piercing damage**

I then aimed my spear to the head of the wolf, and at the right moment, the spear shot away, endebbing itself from the eye to the back of the head. It stayed there for a couple seconds, before vanishing and allowing the Alpha to fall to the ground, dead.

 **+1500 Xp!**

 **Level up! Level up! Level up!**

Now that was an increase! Feeling giddy, I opened my status window, and this is what I found:

 **Daniel Samuels**

 **The Gamer (new title unlocked)**

 **G: 7461**

 **Lv: 10 (281/1000)**

 **Hp: 1130/1130 (+15.3/s)**

 **Mp: 1100/1100 (+14.7/s)**

 **STR: 14 (17.1)**

 **DEX: 15 (18.3)**

 **VIT: 13 (15.8)**

 **INT: 10**

 **WIS: 11**

 **LUK: 7**

 **Stat points: 45**

I was just about to dump everything into INT, but reigned myself in to study things better. From what I had gathered, my INT would modify the number of Mp I had, while WIS would dictate their recovery rate. Thus, a good idea would be to spread my points evenly between the two, but I also didn't want to forsake my luck, since it was exactly what had kept me alive up to now. After some math, I decided that I was going to place one point in LUK for every level gained, now and in the future, while the remaining would always be spread as two in INT, one in WIS, and I would keep the last one to spend every four levels. So, applying my math, I had:

 **Hp: 1130/1130 (+15.3/s)**

 **Mp: 1320/1320 (+17.1/s)**

 **STR: 14 (17.1)**

 **DEX: 15 (18.3)**

 **VIT: 13 (15.8)**

 **INT: 10+22**

 **WIS: 11+11**

 **LUK: 7+11**

 **Stat points: 1**

Managing how to place my points was tough, but in the future it would be worthwile. I hadn't noticed it during my killing spree, but I had gained also 3 STR, 2 DEX and 2 VIT. Neat. It also seemed like my physical stats were also moving a bit towards a speedy build. That could come useful. After all, I could just use a lot of really fast strikes in melee to stagger my enemy before destroying them with a spell while their guard faltered.

Having my future approach been decided, I took a look at what remained of the Alpha, and imagine my surprise when not only did I find a huge bag of gems, but also a cloak and a book! Picking them up, a window appeared floating over the book:

 **You have gained the skill book 'Born leader'! Would you like to learn the skill?**

A gratis skill? How could I refuse? Thus, I pressed immediately yes. What happened I have still trouble comprehending to this day, but the book basically imploded, and at the same time became a fine golden dust that seeped into my hands. A second later, new knowledge flowed into my mind, yet it felt like I was simply remembering something that I forgot a long time ago.

 ***ding***

 **You gained a new skill!**

 **Born leader (passive) Lv: 1 (00.0%)**

 **Every plan needs a good leader in order to work.**

 **+10% damage to all allies following your instructions.**

 **+10% Xp to all members of your party (user included).**

That would become useful, but there was only one problem with that: I had no allies whatsoever at the moment, so that skill was pretty much useless to me.

The cloak, on the other hand, was dark grey and gave a sneaking and intimidation boost. I put it on immediately, also because it looked just so bloody cool.

I decided to return then to my clearing and finally take some much needed rest. The walk back was nothing much, but it did take a while, since I tend to run a lot when there's a huge wolf following me. Arriving at my spot, I climbed the tree I had claimed as mine, and finally broke the ID. It was deep in the morning when I returned to the real world, and the first thing to greet my ears was the laughter of children. Which surprised me a little, since I could recognize one of the voices, but the other was new. Peering between the branches, I caught sight of Star running around with some other young dragon. Performing my usual **Observe** , what I got was:

 **Pyra Sun**

 **The burning blitz**

 **Fire dragoness**

 **Lv: 8**

 **Hp: 920/920**

 **Mp: 940/940**

 **STR: 7**

 **DEX: 16**

 **VIT: 12**

 **INT: 14**

 **WIS: 9**

 **LUK: 35**

 **Pyra is the daughter of Sun Blaze, and is supposed to become the next Fire Guardian. She's easily angered, and is very prideful of her future, but is also very caring of others when she deems them her friends.**

That was a very high LUK for someone so young, but then again, if she was so proud of becoming a Fire Guardian, whatever that was, she must have been lucky.

I watched them play around for a while, and in the meantime kept an eye out for anything prowling around. It wasn't all that hard, since my map could spot living beings: blue was me, yellow were neutrals and red were enemies.

It was nice to have someone nearby, even tough they didn't know I was there. Listening in on them, I gathered that the guards were getting antsy, since they didn't see me today, and were planning to send a small team to look for me, and it seemed that Star and Tundra's father was going to join too. That was some good info, since I could just spend some time finding a way to hide myself and gain some more useful information. After all, it's known that adults tend to know more than the kids.

Having decided how I was going to deal with it, I gave one last look to my map to ensure the area was safe, but I couldn't find anyone other than me. I looked down and noticed the signs of a scuffle on the ground. I would have just pinned it to the girls, but the area was too spread out for it to be only their fault. I tried **Observe** on it, and the results made me start running from tree to tree faster than I had ever done before.

 **A grassy clearing. There are the signs of a fight between two young dragons and a small group of other beings. It seems only one goup walked away.**

 **.**

 **.**

 **Here you go, ya people! Sorry for the cliffhanger, but I couldn't resist. I want to thank everyone for your support, and of course, your reviews, for reading them actually makes my day in ways only a fellow author would know. This is only a special case, since I want to post on Friday, but all the reviews made me so giddy I couldn't wait!**

 **YourCompleteDemise- thanks for pointing out that problem. I was having trouble separating tge thoughts from the script, but I think I managed now.**

 **ConcurrentSky- I think I fixed the LUK aspect quite well, and thanks for saying this is original. That is what I was going for.**

 **killblade373- Now, the pairings will come in time, but Spyro and Cynder won't appear for a while. I didn't spend time making these other characters just to put them aside, you know. Yes, I mean als Cyrus. He will be back.**

 **The Silent Insomniac- Thanks, as I said I am trying to go for something new, so the spellblade is only a name. I'll keep the sword, mind you, but I have no friggin' idea where this will go.**

 **Pirateboy100- Your request is my command!**

 **Shadow Merit- Shadow! Mah boi! It's so good to see you here!**

 **Well, that's all for this chapter. This is Xeno, signing off to Friday (if I'm ready by then, if not Saturday)!**

 **P.S. At first Tundra and Star's last name was going to be Arctic, but I chose to make it a little joke. And yes, also the dragons have last names here. It was never specified in the games, but I think they do have them.**

 **P.P.S. for any sudden tense swaps I might have missed, I am sorry. I am doing my best, but I am not a professional, nor am I a native English user.**


	3. Guardian, ninja, and what else?

Jumping from one tree from the other in Naruto style might be fun, but it was actually pretty hard when you were looking for two young dragonesses that were kidnapped by some things of which I didn't even know the name of. My map was working full-time to find them, and so was I, moving as fast as I could. Apparently the system saw this as training, since I had also gained a DEX point in my rush.

I was starting to get desperate, when I fInally spotted a bunch of red dots surrounding two yellow ones. I dashed to their location with newfound vigor, and stopped within five meters of their location to assess the situation. In that moment my ability let itself known:

 **New quest!**

 **Princess in another castle (story quest)**

 **Star and Pyra were ambushed by the apes!** **Save them before they're brought away!**

 **Kill all the apes []**

 **Escort Pyra and Star to the village []**

 **Bonus: don't let Pyra nor Star be wounded []**

 **Completion reward:**

 **2500 Xp.**

 **increased closeness: Pyra Sun.**

 **increased closeness: Star Polar.**

 **Bonus: new title.**

 **Failure penalty:**

 **self-loathing.**

 **hated by the dragon village.**

 **possible death.**

I didn't even think about leaving them there, so I pressed yes immediately.

There were apes surrounding them from every side, and they weren't in very good shape: I could see scrapes and bruises in a lot of places, and Star's wing was bent at an angle which didn't seem healthy.

Without wasting another second I jumped off my branch, landing between the apes and the dragons. In one swift movement I retrieved my sword, and pointed it at the closest ape, which also seemed to be the leader.

"Take one more step and you will all die."

The apes were looking at each other in confusion, while the leader actually took a step back, probably startled by my sudden appearance. That lasted for nary a second, as after that they all pointed their eyes at me, and charged as one.

I simply threw a **Fireball** at them, and watched them all flying a couple meters back, before getting back up looking no worse for wear. While it was impressive to shake off one of my **Fireballs** like that, I had more tricks up my sleeve. Using an **Aeroblade** I beheaded one of them, and fried another with a **Thunder**.

 **\+ 45 Xp!**

 **\+ 50 Xp!**

After that, I matched their charge, and kept parrying and deflecting blows until I could spot an opening. At the right moment, I threw another **Fireball** in the middle of the small group, and jumped back just before the usual explosion. I knew they weren't dead, so I threw a couple **Frosts** in the middle of the smoke.

I was rewarded in my endeavour with the sight of an ape with a frozen arm, another stuck in place by a foot encased in ice, and the last one was the least lucky, having been hit right in the head. I made quick work of the remaining two with a deliberate use of **Wind spear**.

 **\+ 50 Xp!**

 **\+ 45 Xp!**

 **\+ 45 Xp!**

Only the boss was left, but I couldn't see him anywhere. Activating my **Radar** , I heard a small movement over me, and leaped away just in time to avoid having a two meter tall ape fall on my head. My **Thunders** were doing a poor job at passing his thick hide, so I switched to **Wind spears** , yet it seemed he was just too resistant for it to work.

My hopes were thinning, and as I kept avoiding his slashes, I tried to find a way to kill him. My sword was unfortunately too weak to even scratch him, but maybe I could do something about that. So, I started to pour mana both inside and around my blade, sharpening and strengthening it.

 ***ding***

 **You created a new skill!**

 **Fusing magic with swordsmanship, you made a new skill:**

 **Acheomensis (active) Lv: 1 (00.0%)**

' **My blade is me. I am my blade.' By using your magic to empower your sword, destroy every enemy in your path!**

 **50 Mp/second**

 **+30% to all stats**

 **+10% damage**

 **?- reach level 50 to unlock**

 **?- reach level 100 to unlock**

In that moment, a surge of power like nothing else flooded into my body, and I knew exactly what to do. I dashed over the boss ape, and rolled underneath his swing. In my mind I kept repeating my motions while I was doing them:

'From right to left! Upwards from left to right! Downwards from left to right! Pierce!'

 **+150 Xp!**

 **You created a new combo!**

Once I finished, the skin in the point I targeted was so thin my sword speared his gut and cut his spine. Kicking the ape off my blade, I looked around myself to make sure that was the last one. Sure enough, there weren't anymore, and all the others started disintegrating. I turned my attention to the two young dragonesses, and said the first thing that came to mind:

"It's time to stop playing in the woods."

Pyra was staring at me with a mixture of fear and awe, while Star was struggling to even stand up. I picked her up, and motioned Pyra to follow me. During our walk back to the village neither of us said anything. Once we had reached the edge of the forest, I was about to leave, and just before I did I heard Pyra say:

"Thank you… if you hadn't been there, we would be dead, or worse."

I didn't turn, but replied:

"Just do two things for me: keep this story only to the ones that won't spread it, and remember that this is a dangerous place. Bring someone that can actually fight if you plan to go into this forest."

Having said my piece, I fell back into the midst of the trees, but didn't leave yet: my quest still wasn't completed, so I had to make sure they would get safely to the village. Thanks to my **Falcon's eye** I could keep watch on them as they approached the cluster of houses. A guard took notice of them, and sent someone away, probably to call medical help. I saw Tundra rush to his sister, followed by a bulky blue dragon that I supposed was their father, while Pyra was approached by an athletic but definitely male deep red dragon, and if my **Observe** was to be trusted, he should have been her dad, Sun Blaze.

 ***ding***

 **Princess in another castle (story quest)**

 **Quest completed!**

 **Kill all the apes [OK]**

 **Escort Pyra and Star to the village [OK]**

 **Bonus: don't let Pyra nor Star be wounded [X]**

 **Reward:**

 **2500 Xp,**

 **increased closeness: Pyra Sun,**

 **increased closeness: Star Polar.**

 **Level up! Level up!**

Having my good deed been completed, I took my leave and returned to my usual tree. I chose to simply relax for the day, as I had had way too much excitement for quite a while. In the meantime, I shifted between my menus to analyze all the new stuff I had managed to gain. The points from my level up, of course, went in the usual proportion, so I was left with:

 **Daniel Samuels**

 **The Gamer (new titles unlocked)**

 **G: 8.114**

 **Lv: 12 (166/3000 Xp)**

 **Hp: 1330/1330 (+16.3/s)**

 **Mp: 1570/1570 (+20.2/s)**

 **STR: 14 (17.3)**

 **DEX: 16 (19.8)**

 **VIT: 13 (16.1)**

 **INT: 37**

 **WIS: 24**

 **LUK: 19**

 **Stat points: 3**

 **Alignment: chaotic good**

The alignment was a new thing, and it was actually quite spot-on. Still, I hadn't noticed that I had unlocked new titles. Giving a once over to the list, I saw there were actually a good deal of them I could work on:

 **The Gamer: Your life is a game. No boosts.**

 **Rising Alpha: +20% Xp to missions when in a party. Obtained killing an Alpha Lycan.**

 **Pyromaniac: blocked. Bring a fire spell up to level 50 to unlock.**

 **Apprentice Swordmaster: blocked. Bring swordsmanship to level 30 to unlock.**

 **Apprentice Mage: blocked. Bring a spell to level 20 to unlock.**

The 'Apprentice Swordmaster' one left me a tad perplexed: I didn't have a swordfighting skill, so why did that title appear? Flipping a little through my skills, I came across the reason: the Skill page had more layers to it: one was dedicated to my actual skills, while the other had a list of the different fighting styles I could master. Right then, the only style listed was:

 **Swordsmanship (fighting style) Lv: 4 (19.6%)**

 **Known combos:**

 **Scorpion sting – Lv: 1 (05.0%)**

In all honesty, I didn't even get an alert for the fighting style, yet I did get one for making a combo. I wanted to test sonething, so I dropped off my tree and proceeded to mimic a set of hits I had seen once in a film: left hook, right hook, uppercut, and a punch to the gut.

 **You created a new combo!**

Opening again my Skill list once more, a new fighting style had appeared:

 **Unarmed (fighting style) Lv: 1 (02.0%)**

 **Known combos:**

 **Dynamite buster – Lv: 1 (05.0%)**

My hunch was correct, then: fighting styles were like a skill, but more subtle: as I got experience in a certain style, the better I would become, but it only affected my proficiency, not my power. Still, it was good to know: I wouldn't have to learn how to use a sword, as the system was already teaching me subconsciously.

With that doubt sated, I returned to my lazy day. The only thing left for me to check was this 'alignment' thingy. Touching it, the respective info screen appeared:

 **Your alignment dictates how you react to certain things and how you solve problems. It will change parts of the storyline, and also your closeness to some people.**

The explanation answered some of my questions, but another one arose: what did the system mean by closeness? Fumbling around, I found an options screen, and in the lower right corner was a small button with a question mark on it. Pressing the button, the screen in front of me changed, and a list of options took its place:

 **Stats**

 **Skills**

 **System**

 **Guide**

Wondering about what I would find, I pressed the Guide option, and a smaller window overlayed the list.

 **Right now you are in the dragon realm, a place home to many creatures, some good and some evil. On Earth, a videogame series portrayed this land: 'The legend of Spyro'. You might have heard of it. The point being: since your death came way before schedule, and you had nothing to make amends for, you were given a new chance, and also the 'Gamer' ability, as a form of apology. Mind you, this is the only redo you're getting. If you die again, it's forever.**

The last part made me shiver a little. It wasn't anything I didn't expect already, but being reminded of it made me a little more self-conscious. And 'the legend of Spyro'? I did hear of it, and could recognize the main characters, but I hadn't the foggiest about the storyline. Then again, I might have appeared way before or after the events of the story. There was no point to dwelling on that, so I stopped worrying and kept lazing my day off.

Nothing else worthy of note happened for the rest of the day, and at sundown I opened an empty ID to get some training in, focusing some more on my DEX. My gains were: 2 STR, 3 DEX and 2 VIT. I noticed that my increasing was getting slower, but that was to be expected. After all, the stronger you get, the harder it is to improve.

I came around to planning a schedule, and for the next few days I stuck to it, as nothing else required my attention: during the day I would go hunting in my ID, which in the meantime opened up a couple more possibilities: apes and grublins. I favored going after apes, as they gave more Xp than my other choices, and during my night I would alternatively work out or practice my spells some more.

During my hunting trips I started leaning a little more on the melee side, as evidenced by my **Swordsmanship** , which had just reached level 15. In this time, I had also made some new skills and combos:

 **Fira (active) Lv: 7 (21.9%)**

 **Channel your mana through the lithosphere and incendiate the very ground around you or your enemies.**

 **20 Mp per use**

 **Max area: 2,75 meters**

 **? – reach level 25 to unlock**

 **Overdrive (active & passive) Lv: 13 (54.8%)**

 **Enhancing your brain's processing speed with mana, you can react way faster than ever before!**

 **45 Mp/second**

 **+22% to DEX, INT and WIS**

 **Max duration: 5 minutes, 15 seconds**

 **Swordsmanship (fighting style) Lv: 15 (13.7%)**

 **Known combos:**

 **Scorpion sting – Lv: 6 (63.1%)**

 **Aera mors – Lv: 3 (14.5%)**

 **Final dance – Lv: 5 (37.8%)**

That wasn't all, of course: also my status screen had taken quite a massive change, as applying both **Enhancement** and **Overdrive** gave me a huge boost now:

 **Daniel Samuels**

 **The Gamer**

 **G: 16.584**

 **Lv: 15 (218/10000 Xp)**

 **Hp: 1680/1680 (+21.3/s)**

 **Mp: 1950/1950 (+25.6/s)**

 **STR: 19 (24.1)**

 **DEX: 23 (34.2)**

 **VIT: 18 (22.8)**

 **INT: 45 (54.9)**

 **WIS: 28 (35.1)**

 **LUK: 23**

 **Stat points: 2**

 **Alignment: chaotic good**

I was resting in my tree, clouds lazily trailing around the sky and the occasional bird breaking trough the canopy. Normally, I would have been hunting at that hour, but in that morning I felt I deserved a little break from all the nonstop work. I stated wondering how Star an Pyra were faring. After all, it had been days since I last saw them. With a small grunt, I pushed my self off the branch I was seated on, and set onwards to the end of the still-unnamed-forest.

I took my time admiring the scenery there, as I noticed that until then, not even once did I just unwind and enjoy the beauty of my surroundings. Some small flowers could be seen here and there between the leaves, and I managed to spot a couple nests on some of the highest branches. Every small bit of information added up to indicate that it was early spring, perhaps March, or the beginnings of April.

My stroll was cut short once I closed in on the treeline, and I assumed my old observation spot, paying particular attention on making sure that I was well hidden. Once I was hidden enough, I used **Falcon's eye** to glance around town for any familiar face. It was indeed a hard task, as I could recognize only five dragons in the whole village, but I found someone: Blaze. Keeping my eyes on him, I spotted him entering a building that probably was his home.

I would have wanted to follow him also physically, but I didn't want to risk it yet, so I filed the spot in my memory, and returned to where I started.

It was time to work on something I had put off for quite a while: illusions. Most specifically, invisibility. Basing myself on what I knew, in order to achieve invisibility I would have needed to bend the light around my body. Thus, I began commanding my mana to perform said task. Many minutes passed like that, but just when I was going to give up:

 ***ding***

 **You created a new skill!**

 **A skill to avoid being seen by others,'Invisibility' was created!**

 **Invisibility (active & passive) Lv: 1 (00.0%)**

 **Coating your body with a layer of mana, you can redirect light around you, making it easier to confound yourself with the surroundings. Higher levels increase the effectiveness of the skill.**

 **40 Mp/second**

While the skill was active, anyone who would look in my direction, would notice the blur caused by my movement, but if I would stand still in the shadows, I would be very difficult to spot. Adding my **Sneak** to the equation, as long as I was careful no one would spot me. To add to my chances, I chose to spend the rest of my day grinding **Invisibility** , and try sneaking into the village at dusk.

I managed to get the skill to level 3 by the end of the day. I could have done more, but I had to stop multiple times to recover my Mp. At sudown I moved again towards the village, and studied the movements of the guards around. There were way more around during thee night than the day, but it was to be expected, after all.

 ***ding***

 **New quest!**

 **Child's angel (optional quest)**

 **Sneak in the village to check up on Pyra and Star.**

 **Find Pyra []**

 **Find Star []**

 **Leave without being followed []**

 **Bonus: ? []**

 **Bonus: ? []**

 **Completion reward:**

 **1500 Xp.**

 **New title.**

 **Bonus: increased closeness: Pyra Sun**

 **Bonus: increased closeness: Star Polar**

 **Failure penalty:**

 **Capture.**

 **Possible death.**

Man, the system just liked to treaten me, didn't it? Nonetheless, it wasn't going to be too hard as long as I was careful. Plus, I could use every small bit of Xp in that period. Thus, I accepted the quest and returned to planning my moves.

Timing my movements carefully, I slipped between the guards, my cloak helping me blend between the shadows, as I opted for using my Mp only when in absolute need. Weaving between the patrolling dragons was tough, but it got somewhat easier as my **Sneak** skill gained a couple levels in the process.

My plan wasn't very thought out, as I had absolutely no idea as to what to do if I would manage to find either Pyra of Star, but all in all I just wanted to be sure that they were healthy again. No one could blame me, after all, had they seen the state in which I last saw them. Finally, I had reached the place where I assumed Pyra lived in. Checking from the windows, I managed to spot her on the first floor, and a quick use of **Observe** relieved me, yet made me worry even more:

 **Pyra Sun**

 **The burning blitz**

 **Fire dragoness**

 **Lv: 8**

 **Hp: 800/920**

 **Mp: 940/940**

 **STR: 7**

 **DEX: 16**

 **VIT: 12**

 **INT: 14**

 **WIS: 9**

 **LUK: 35**

 **Pyra is the daughter of Sun Blaze, and is supposed to become the next Fire Guardian. She's easily angered, and is very prideful of her future, but is also very caring of others when she deems them her friends.**

 **Closeness: +15/100**

 **Mood: dreaming, angry, scared**

The closeness and mood were new, but probably the system implemented those because I actually cared at the moment.

A good part of her body was covered in bandages, but she looked good enough, all things considered. She was tossing and turning in her bed, fighting something that obliviously was only in her mind. I wanted to leave, having pushed my luck quite far, but I gave in to my instincts, and entered the room. I gave a quick look around, and all in all the room was quite simple: a bed, a desk, a small bookshelf, and some toys thrown around the ground.

To this day I can't say what made me do it, but I blame my brotherly instinct combined with loneliness. Point is, I started caressing Pyra's neck while humming a little tune I would sing to my little sister when she had trouble sleeping. After a couple minutes of that, she had visibly calmed down, and a small smile showed on her muzzle. A smile that was mirrored by me when I noticed a change in her status windows:

 **Closeness: +20/100**

 **Mood: dreaming, peceful**

Satisfied with myself, I jumped out of the window and started weaving through the alleys once more. Finding Star was going to be way tougher, but I was going to try nonetheless. Moving in the direction in which I had spotted Tundra and Star's father bring them a couple days ago, I checked all the houses I could peer into.

My research came to an end around five minutes later, as I noticed none other than Tundra leaving a building just a little further. I had no idea what to make of that, so I did the only thing I seemedd to do lately, and **Observed** him. Nothing had changed from last time, except:

 **Closeness: +5/100**

 **Mood: concerned, confused, grateful**

It seemed that he had gained some sort of opinion on me, as his status showed. I had no idea what his mood was about, tough, so I just stayed out of sight until he decided to return inside. Once he did, I waited for another ten minutes before checking the windows. Star's room was on the back side of the house, on the ground floor.

Surprisingly, she was awake: I could see her condition was worse than Pyra's, as many bandages were wrapped around her, but what really stuck out was her wing: it was completely stretched, and thoroughly covered in bandages, to the point where I couldn't spot even a scale underneath all that. Nonetheless, she didn't look bothered by it, as her whole attention was on a book open in front of her.

She seemed to be muttering something while writing, but I couldn't understand what she was saying, as the window was closed. I was simply going to leave, yet fate had other plans, as Star lifted her gaze from her book just in that moment, and locked her eyes with me. We simply stared at each other for what felt like hours, but must have been only a minute or two at best.

My brain had decided to flat-line, so I resorted to my last choice: I created an ID around the two of us, and opened the window. In that moment, Star backpedaled to the wall behind her, and stared me in fear. I wasn't in the mood to deal with that, so I said plainly:

"No, I'm not here to hurt you, I just was worried as to how you and your friend were faring, as you were quite battered last time I saw you."

Her expression morphed from fear to confusion, and then to embarassment, as the meaning of what I was saying sinked in.

"And, now that the explanation is out of the way, how have you been?"

Star had separated herself from the wall, and was keeping her gaze down for whatever reason.

"W-well, my wing is still aching a little, but the bone should be fine by next week. Everything else is almost as good as new, so I suppose I'm fine now."

I had sat down on the edge of her bed while she was talking, and I gestured for her to sit next to me. She was a little hesitant, but placed herself back on the bed by the time I replied:

"That's very good to know, but I have to ask: have you told anyone about what happened back then?"

Star started fidget, obliviously uncomfortable with the question, but answered nonetheless.

"I've told mom, dad, and my brother Tundra. I think Pyra told her dad, but I'm not sure. Mom and dad don't want to talk much about it, but Tundra would like to meet you, at least to thank you personally."

She was shaking uncomfortably by the time she finished, probably worried she might offend me or something. While I understood her worries, that didn't stop me from chuckling a little at the notion.

"I suppose we could meet sometime. He seems a nice fella, after all. But that will come later. For now, focus on getting better."

Getting up, I patted her head and moved to the window.

"It's late, you get to sleep now."

With that last sentence, I flung myself out of the window and destroyed the ID. Making my way outside wasn't hard, as I simply opened a second ID and strolled calmly out in the road. Once I reached the treeline, I closed the ID once more and headed to my 'base'.

 ***ding***

 **Child's angel (optional quest)**

 **Quest completed!**

 **Sneak in the village to check up on Pyra and Star.**

 **Find Pyra [OK]**

 **Find Star [OK]**

 **Leave without being followed [OK]**

 **Bonus: Quell Pyra's nightmares [OK]**

 **Bonus: Give Star some more insight on you [OK]**

 **Completion reward:**

 **1500 Xp.**

 **New title.**

 **Bonus: increased closeness: Pyra Sun**

 **Bonus: increased closeness: Star Polar**

Once I reached my glade I brought my titles on to find what I had gained:

 **The Gamer: Your life is a game. No boosts.**

 **Rising Alpha: +20% Xp to missions when in a party. Obtained killing an Alpha Lycan.**

 **Guardian: +50% to all stats when defending someone of a lower level. Obtained by protecting and caring about someone.**

 **Pyromaniac: blocked. Bring a fire spell up to level 50 to unlock.**

 **Apprentice Swordmaster: blocked. Bring swordsmanship to level 30 to unlock.**

 **Apprentice Mage: blocked. Bring a spell to level 20 to unlock.**

That was actually pretty nice. I decided to make **Guardian** my current title, and readied my sword. I had to make up for the lost time in my training, and probably even more, as I had the feeling that shit was gonna hit the fan soon enough.

 ***ding***

 **A new skill was created!**

 **Trough accurate premonitions of the future, the skill 'Foreshadowing' has been created!**

…nailed it.

 **I know I'm a day late, but I had some things to do, so I managed to finish this only at 10 PM of last night. Anyway, as usual: I'm sorry for mistakes in spelling, sintax or anything of the sort, as I'm not a native English and I write on my phone. Hope you enjoyed, favorite, follow, and review.**

 **Pirateboy1000: I still don't know about the Abyss auction, but I intend to keep this up for as long as I can.**

 **Ratedn777: Thanks for reading, and I will do that, but most of the other characters are still children, tough I will try.**

 **The Silen Insomniac: Here you have the alignment. It might change based on where the story goes, but I like it the way it is for now. BTW, it's Daniel.**

 **NeonZangetsu: Thanks a bunch for the tips, and I will try to change my style towards the better. Nonetheless, I tend to be a little thickheaded, so my habits might slip a little here and there.**

 **DarkLightShade: I definitely will continue, and Daniel does know that, but he already has a lot of time on his hands, so he just doesn't care.**

 **That was all the reviews I can answer today, so see ya next Friday! Xeno out.**

 **P.S. I don't own 'The legend of Spyro'. If I did, Sparx would be useful for something.**

 **P.P.S. Yes, I noticed that I seem to be caring more about Pyra than Star, but she really is based off my sister, so it's a psychological reaction that I actually have when writing her character.**


	4. Deals with the enemy

**?'s P.O.V.**

I was frantically looking around, trying to find my hunter. That was supposed to be a simple mission: get to the place, check in with the team already there, and solve whatever the problem was. Normally, a team would send a report every week, ten days at most. But as the end of the second week arrived, the king had lost all of his patience: the first team was very overqualified for a simple kidnapping mission.

But that wasn't the problem. Something lurked in the forest nearby the damned village. At the beginning, it had limited itself to watch us from between the trees. Slowly, one by one, the other members of the team had disappeared on the course of the days. They would be found hours later after their disappearance, dismembered.

We chose to leave, but the thing was still following us. It could be seen watching at a distance, unmoving. Its eyes glowed a creepy blue hue, and it was really lanky. It was still awfully strong, as it had managed to overpower my leader without even batting an eye.

I could feel it. Its eyes were burrowing their way inside me, slowly filling my soul with dread. I had started running at some point, leaving behind all of my things. It wouldn't matter anyway, with my whole team dead, not that I cared about them, mind you, and the luggage was only slowing me down at that point.

I turned around for a split second, but that was enough for me: it was still there. No matter how far I would run, it would just follow no matter what.

I didn't want to die like a coward tough, so I stopped in my tracks and turned to the monster following me. It seemed surprised by my actions, but didn't move at all. It just…stared. Like it always did.

Slowly, I drew my sword and started advancing carefully towards my enemy. It didn't so much as twitch, it just watched. I was within one meter an half of the beast.

Looking at it from that close, it didn't look all that threatening. It looked like a mix between a cheetah and an ape, just a little shorter than two meters, standing roughly at eye level with me. Its clothes were quite strange, covered by a dark grey cloak. It looked very thin compared to an ape, but its eyes showed an intelligence that I had rarely seen in my life. Suddenly, its mouth opened and it spoke:

"You want to fight me?"

It-his tone was low, but audible. I was not that surprised by that, tough, as I had heard him whisper things whenever I looked at him, so I answered promptly.

"Yes, I do."

A small smirk appeared on the monster's face, and he inclined slightly his head to the left.

"Do you realize you have no chance in defeating me?"

I knew that. I wasn't even a skilled warrior. That was my first mission, and I never had any combat experience beforehand, but I wouldn't go down without a struggle. I simply nodded my head slowly, my eyes still trained on the weird being in front of me.

"You intend to fight me even knowing that you will lose? That makes you honor. Shall we begin then?"

As he finished talking, he swiped his hand in the air in front of him, and a sword materialized in front of him. Grasping it, the being pointed it lousily at me with one hand, adopting a relaxed stance.

I readied myself, holding my blade with both hands and eyeing my enemy carefully. He gave a halfhearted swing, and I parried it easily. What I did not expect was the impressive amount of strength behind that simple move. It wasn't enough to stagger me, but if he could put such power in a lousy hit, I pitied whoever got him to actually try.

Shaking myself from my thoughts, I narrowly deflected a downwards slash, and retailed with a lunge at his open side. He sidestepped my attack with extreme ease, and tripped me immediately after. My sword slipped from my hands, too far away for me to even think of getting it back.

I felt the creature pressing his foot on my back, and saw the glint of his sword at the edge of my vision. I knew that my time had arrived, and I readied myself to meet my ancestors.

"I am impressed. You're quite a good fighter, all in all."

What was he waiting for? Did he enjoy the feeling of having lives at his mercy? Did he put everyone else through the same treatment as me?

"Now, now. I know you are confused, but let me explain before you go in a tangent. You see, a little over two weeks ago, some of your kind attacked and tried to kidnap a young dragon from under my nose."

At that point, he wasn't even pressing his foot on me anymore, but he had walked right between me and my sword, so I just chose to stay down.

"Now, I don't like to see children being mistreated, so I had to save them. It just so happened that in order to do that I was forced to kill the whole squad. Would you imagine my surprise when exactly two weeks after that another bunch of apes appeared in my zone of the forest."

He had gotten so carried away in his speech that he sat down, and I found that at some point I had sat up and started listening intently.

"So, I started to observe you guys, hoping that you weren't here for the same reason. But when I heard your leader talking about it, I just couldn't let you guys do it. After all, if it came to protecting your friends, you would do the same, right?"

I nodded numbly at his question, and a question floated at the forefront of my mind:

"That actually doesn't explain why you had to dismember my teammates. And also, why are you even telling me all of this?"

He just shook a little his head and said in a mirthful voice:

"I did nothing of the sort. I just wanted to mess with you, so I put a couple illusions here and there. I'll say that it worked superbly, standing to how you guys reacted. As for the second part, I was getting there."

While that eased some of my worries, I still didn't want to trust him to just letting me go. After all, he still had killed the others.

"Now, if you'll let me continue. I have the peculiar ability to gauge someone's attributes just with a look. Your team was too stupid or too corrupt to suit my needs, but you are different."

He had leaned a little in my direction as he said that, and I was getting a bad feeling about what was going to come next.

"You are smart, and your allegiance is only to the ones you care about, not to your king. You were forced in this position, weren't you?"

For being a heartless monster, he was quite observant. He was right, I never wanted being a soldier, but with our king planning whatever he was, the call to arms had become mandatory. Nonetheless, I still had no idea where he was going with that.

He must have noticed my confused look, for he continued:

"I'll get to the point: I need information. All of you apes seem to be targeting my friend, and I want to know why. Plus, I need a spy in the ape ranks, and I think I can trust you with this. Of course, I can give you some things in return."

He had gained my attention with that: he would give me the chance to probably sabotage my king's operations, and something more. The deal was tempting, but I wanted to know exactly what was in it for me.

"Let us say for a second that I agree with you: what do I get from this and why should I believe a single word of what you say?"

The smile on his face became even bigger, if possible, as he heard that. I was honestly thinking he was just insane and wanted to play with me before killing me.

He might just have heard my thoughts, as he dropped the smile and assumed a blank expression. His voice had assumed a business-like tone, and he said:

"Assuming you'll take up my offer, I'll firstly let you leave this place alive and provide you with a story to cover how you survived, while your team did not. Secondly, I am assuming that you have not seen your loved ones in a while: the story I will provide you should be able to grant you some time off duty, so you could see them once more. And finally, if I deem you trustworthy enough, I'll grant you a power beyond your wildest dreams. Now that all the cards are on the table, do we have a deal?"

I pondered the pros and cons for a while in my head, as the choice was not an easy one: on one side I could have a chance to do something against that imbecile on the throne, some time with my family and finally a chance to power, all with supposedly a powerful ally.

On the other side, if I were found out, I would most likely be killed for treason, and my loved ones would follow suit. Then again, I doubted I would even leave this blasted forest if I didn't agree to the pact.

In the end, I chose to follow the path that gave me some chances at surviving:

"So be it. We have a deal."

The creature dropped his cold demeanor and helped me up at my words. While he was dusting himself off, I eyed my sword for a second, wondering whether I should take it or not. He must have noticed my gaze, as he said nonchalantly:

"Go ahead and take it. If you want to get out of here alive you'll need it. I'm not the only dangerous thing here, you know."

I shrugged and followed his directions, wondering what could be called as dangerous as whatever that weird being was. Once that thought passed through my head, I noticed I didn't know neither his name nor what he was. I turned to ask for my supposed ally's name, but he beat me to the punch:

"By the way, if you're wondering, I am a human. My name is not your concern, as you won't find any other humans anywhere nearby. Now, what would your name be?"

I felt a little miffed at his manners, but as I was in no position to criticize him, I opted to keep my thoughts for myself, and simply answered:

"My name is Zilan. Anything else is not your concern."

He snickered a little at that, and shook his head in mirth. He didn't answer, tough, and simply motioned for me to follow him. I complied, wondering where he was bringing me. He said nothing, he just kept poking at the air like an imbecile, and his eyes darted around like he was reading something.

After a couple minutes of silence, he started agitating his fingers wildly in the air in front of him, and poked the air one more time. In that exact moment, a weird blue floating rectangle appeared in front of me. I took a step back from the scare, and studied the thing in front of me: it seemed to follow me, and there was something written on it:

 **You have 1 new message.**

Underneath the confusing sentence, there were a green circle and a red one. Confused, I tried touching it, and it felt solid to the touch. Applying more pressure, the rectangle gave in and my finger slipped trough just as if it were made of water. Casually, I touched the green circle and the rectangle collapsed onto itself, making place for a bigger blue square, once again with some writing on it:

 **Can you read this?**

 **-D**

Underneath, there was a blank zone and a huge bunch of squares, each with a letter engraved on it. I pressed a couple of them, to see what would happen, and the blank space started filling up with the letters I was pressing. I found a small rectangle with an arrow pointing towards left, and pressing it the last letter disappeared. Trying again, I got the same result.

Having gotten the hang of it, I used the floating letters to write a positive reply, but I had no idea what to do then. Scanning the blue square once more, I spotted a small writing underneath what I wrote, reading 'done'. Assuming that I had to press it, I did so, and the square disappeared.

Turning my head to the human, I saw him looking at me with an affirmative look on his face. He gave a small nod, and said:

"That's good. You learn fast. I was fearing I would have to teach you how to read and answer to my messages."

I stared at him flabbergasted for a good a bunch of seconds, then I said the smartest thing I could think of:

"Are you saying that it was your doing?"

He shrugged his shoulders a little and said:

"If you want to put it that way, yes. But I still have to tell you a couple things about it: if you want to tell me something immediately, you just have to say or think 'chat'. Don't worry, it doesn't work if you say it in a sentence, and even then, no one can see it except you. At least, I couldn't. Just as I suppose you couldn't see what I was doing?"

He gave me a quizzical look when he paused, and I shook my head. Seemingly satisfied, he continued:

"Alright. I will check in with you once a week, and I expect to tell me all of note that happened and you found out during the week. If you hear something critical, you will tell me in the first free moment you have. Anything. Missions that are being scheduled, the objectives, what are your leader's plans, and pretty much anything you believe can help in some way."

That was oddly specific, but I nodded nonetheless. The 'human', as he called himself, was getting weirder by the minute, but I avoided pointing it out.

"Very well. Now, two more things until you can go: one, your cover story. You will say that a monster has taken to protect the village, and that it killed your leader before you could do anything. Your teammates then attacked the monster to give you a chance to leave to tell the tale, as you were the youngest and could run faster than any of them. Get that?"

That actually sounded plausible, but they would ask for me to describe such a creature. Voicing my concerns the human, he hummed in contempt:

"Yeah, that might be a problem, but maybe I can do something about it."

With that, he closed his eyes and stopped moving immediately. Slowly he started becoming taller, until he easily cleared three meters, his arms long enough to reach his knees, and he became even thinner than before, to the point where I thought that he was going to fly away with a breeze. His skin paled to the point of becoming a very light grey, and his face slowly lost all of its features, leaving only a mouth that split his head almost completely in two.

He smiled down at me, revealing two uninterrupted sets of fangs, and said in a nightmarish voice:

" **W** **h** _ **A**_ _t_ d **o** _y_ **O** _ **u T**_ hI _n_ _ **K?**_ "

What did I think? I was thinking that I was utterly terrified. I had started backing up without even noticing, and I ended up with my back to a tree, unable to even utter a word.

" _I_ **aS** suM _E_ _ **th**_ **I** s W **il** _ **L**_ _ **b**_ **E** En **ou** G _h._ "

He then changed back to his original form, and gave a confident smirk. The human then said:

"If they won't find this terrifying, then I'm eating my cloak. And judging from your reaction, they definitely will. Now, tough, for the second point: I have a question that I need you to answer."

I took a moment to calm my raging heart, and gestured for him to go on.

"Now, I know that your target was supposed to be a young fire dragoness living in the village just outside of the forest. Right?"

I nodded impatiently, as I wanted to leave already.

"Good. Now, my question is: what would you need her for? What were you guys trying to achieve by that?"

I took my time to gather what I knew, which unfortunately wasn't that much, and stated:

"For what I know, it was because of her inner fire. You see, rumor has it that our king's mages have become able to harness the inner element of the dragons, and as she is supposed to become the Fire Guardian, her inner fire is one of the strongest. I think you can understand what would happen if our king gained such a power."

The human nodded looking quite pensive, then looked back at me, and said:

"This strengthens my suspects. Our deal is still the same, but remember: if you rat me out, I'll find you and make you regret it."

I let my lips morph in a small smirk as I answered:

"You don't even exist to my knowledge. All there is to this place is a nightmare, and nothing more."

He donned a smirk matching my own, and said:

"I have the feeling this will be a nice partnership."

He then helped me up once more, and added:

"Just a stray thought, but before you go: who is this king of yours?"

I made sure to add as much venom to my voice as I could, as I voiced my opinion on the king:

"His name is Egul, son of king Gaul. But, the only thing they are similar in is their aspect, as Egul is a total fool. He is aware that we only just got out of a war, yet he seems to be planning attacks left and right like nothing. If you are planning to take his place, I doubt many would oppose, as you're undoubtedly smarter than him."

I didn't notice it, but the human had inched away from me somewhere during my tirade, and was staring at me questioningly. He shook his head, and spoke:

"Don't worry about that, you just keep me informed. I'll take care of everything. Now, off you go, and I expect you to let me know when you reach… wherever you were dispatched from. Come on, shoo, shoo."

He didn't have to tell me twice, as I started running at full speed away from him, and towards the basecamp I was dispatched from.

Thinking back about it, who could have known such a simple mission would turn in that clusterfuck. At least, I gained one or two things out of it.

 **Alright, everyone. I know this chapter is way shorter than the others, but I didn't feel comfortable in making a chapter in two different P.O.V.. You might have some questions, for example: 'Why did Daniel get Zilan to become his spy?' well, for that and other questions you will have to wait. All will be explained either in the next chapter, or further on in the story. Again, sorry for the shorter chapter, but I wanted to let you see from Zilan's eyes in this part, as he will be important further on. On a side note, did you enjoy the beginning of the chapter? I tried to make it as creepy as possible, since I wanted to remember you guys how Daniel would be seen from an outside perspective, yet how you think he would be seen is your opinion, and actually, why don't you tell me your opinion on his character? I definitely would like to know that.**

 **Normally I would answer the reviews, but I guess the only thing I have to say to Y'all is: THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT EVERYONE! And now, Xeno out!**

 **P.S. I want to give Daniel something along the lines of a familiar later on. What beast would be better for him in your opinion? (If you say wolf you have no imagination in my eyes)**


	5. The second idiot arrives

**Daniel's P.O.V.**

A scream filled the air, and another grublin fell to my sword piercing its gut.

 **+60 Xp!**

 **Level up!**

Believing that to be enough for the time being, I put away my blade in a scabbard I had crafted and attached to my belt with some **wolf pelts**. On a side note, they are actually quite resistant to use, and I was grateful for having that as I didn't have to whip out my inventory at any given second.

Still, I had put away my sword, and as usual, I distributed the new points I gained. Ten days or so had passed since my meeting with Zilan, and I had amped up my training, leveling up my **Create ID** to the point where I could access new enemies. The grublins gave only 10 Xp more than an ape normally, but they were quite a lot, and travelled usually in big groups, so it wasn't even that hard to decimate tons of them.

My training was paying off quite well, as all of my stats passed 30 when I used my **Reinforcement** , which I had actually taken to keep up 24/7, as it didn't hinder me much anymore, and it was also useful to an unholy level:

 **Daniel Samuels**

 **The Gamer**

 **G: 24.487**

 **Lv: 20 (10/100.000 Xp)**

 **Hp: 2150/2150 (27.6/s)**

 **Mp: 3675/3675 (47.1/s)**

 **STR: 24 (32.8)**

 **DEX: 30 (41.1)**

 **VIT: 25 (35.3)**

 **INT: 55**

 **WIS: 32**

 **LUK: 28**

 **Stat points: 2**

 **Alignment: chaotic good**

Raising my INT to 50 had also brought some quite good news, as I had gained a new skill from it:

 **Small mana capacity (passive) Lv: max**

 **An increased knowledge about mana allows you to store more mana into your body.**

 **Increases Mp by 50%**

 **Increases Mp regeneration by 50%**

Basically, with that skill I had made my first steps into brokenness, even though I still had a long way to go before I could be considered unbeatable.

Making my way back to my tree once more, I wondered what I was going to do in the near future: I supposed I could try to reveal myself to the dragon village, and if that was going to work, then I could take into consideration the idea of taking a house there. After all, I was missing the idea of sleeping in an actual bed, plus the loneliness was becoming a serious problem even for **Gamer's mind** to contain.

"Decisions, decisions…" I muttered to myself. "Man, what I wouldn't do for someone to come around. This is just sooo boring!" I ended my complaint by letting my arms slip off of my torso and dangle lazily from the branch.

My only company was becoming the monsters I killed, and it was absolutely numbing. A stray thought was slipping in my head: maybe I really should go visit Star. After all, I still had to meet Tundra.

With a goal in mind, I calmly made my way towards the edge of the forest. As I was approaching the village, a red flag popped up in my head: something was definitely out of the norm. Closing in, I could see some sort of commotion happening in town.

Using **Falcon's eye** I could see a whole bunch of dragons running around. It was oblivious that they were looking for something, but what?

Straining myself I saw a figure moving from the shadows of an alley to duck under a fruit stall. It didn't stay there for long, as it kept moving, slowly but surely towards the edge of the village.

Seeing the sneak trying to escape like that, I readied myself to catch them. I climbed up the tree I was hiding behind, and prepared to give them a surprise.

Once the sneak broke through the treeline, he hid under the tree I was in, trying to regain his breath. I was about to jump, but I stopped myself noticing something important:

He wore a hoodie and a pair of jeans. That was already enough, as the locals didn't seem to know how to make a pair of jeans. Thus, only one conclusion was possible: he was just like me.

My suspects were confirmed, but even less things made sense, as I looked over his Status:

 **John Romano**

 **The Gamer**

 **G:12.684**

 **Lv: 13 (630/4000)**

 **Hp: 1310/1460 (+16.2/s)**

 **Mp: 1480/1480 (+16.8/s)**

 **STR: 15**

 **DEX: 22**

 **VIT: 16**

 **INT: 18**

 **WIS: 20**

 **LUK:18**

 **Stat points: 0**

 **Alignment: neutral good**

John Romano. Motherfucking John managed to follow me even here.

"What the fuck?!"

John was startled by my outburst, and had started looking around himself to find whoever talked.

I was thrilled that one of my friends was here, of course, but really? That was ridiculous! He would have needed to… die.

I could relate on some level, but I really hope he got something painless like me. There's no worse way of going than a long and painful death.

John had settled down by the time I finished thinking, and now he was getting up, probably planning to head deeper inside the forest. I wasn't gonna let him go alone, of course, so I jumped off the branch I was perched upon.

John whirled around when he heard me landing, and whipped out a dagger little shorter than his forearm. Noticing my face, his expression morphed from hostility to shock, and then to confusion, as he relaxed his stance a little.

"Daniel? Is… is that you, man?"

"Yep. It's a long story, but I believe we shouldn't stay here anymore." An idea then popped in my mind, and I extended my arm towards him. "Here, give me your hand. I'll get us out."

He was visibly confused, but decided to keep his mouth shut and listen to me, being used to my wacky ideas. Once I got hold of him, I cloaked us both with an ID. He definitely noticed something was different, as he looked at me with a suspicious expression, and said:

"What did you do? It's not the first time I see this thing, and usually it's nothing good."

I regarded him with a small smirk, and said:

"Remember when I made you read 'The Gamer'?"

He gave me an uncertain nod, yet I could see he was starting to connect the dots.

"If you haven't noticed, we are now 'Gamers', and as such, we can make IDs." I shrugged my shoulders as I continued: "At least, I know how."

John stared at me for a little while, then proceeded to facepalm and mutter:

"Why did I not think of doing that?"

He said also other things, but I'd rather not repeat that. Nonetheless, at the end of his rant he returned his attention on me and said: "Please tell me you don't know also how to use magic."

I slowly let my smirk grow, and whipped up a simple **Fireball**.

My friend grunted in exasperation, and said in an annoyed voice: "Ok, I'll tell you my story, you tell me yours and then you teach me how to magic."

I cocked an eyebrow hearing his wording, and asked slowly: "Uhh… don't you mean 'teach me how-"

"Teach me. How. To. Magic."

Knowing better that arguing against that tone, I lowered my hand and started walking towards my glade. In the meantime, I asked John how did he get there.

John scratched the back of his head a little, then said: "Well… it started about a week ago…"

 **Flashback time**

 **John's P.O.V.**

"Ugh… my everything."

I was in so much pain I could barely open my eyes, but what little I could see worried me: I saw stars, but not the normal kind: they were too many, too clear, too… bright.

Forcing myself to push against the pain, I sat up, and gave a look to my surroundings. Saying I was surprised would be an understatement: I found myself at the top of a cliff, in front of me was a lush forest, with shades of green I didn't even know existed. Behind me I could see some more trees, and not too far was a mountain chain, seemingly encompassing the valley, or at least the part that I could see.

My mind was a jumbled mess of thoughts and questions: the biggest ones being 'what is this place', 'I need to find civilization' and 'how did I get here'.

Trying to calm down, I concentrated on finding some sort of answers, so I tried remembering the events that brought to that predicament.

I could remember a bridge… and a scream. Then something hit my back… and I fell. After that, nothing more. Welp, that fixed a whole load of nothing. My body felt somewhat less sore at that point, so I got to my feet and tried to choose in which direction I should head to.

From some part of my mind I remembered the small amount of survival training I got the year before, so I followed my notions and headed towards the valley. After all, trees mean water, possibly food and some sort of shelter.

A couple hours later, I heard a small gurgle coming from my left. Moving towards it, the sound grew until I could recognize it easily: it was a small river, flowing lazily towards a slightly clearer area. Drinking my fill, I made my way following the flow of the river.

Some more hours passed, until something of note happened. Namely, everything got quiet. The sound of the water was still there, of course, but that was it. The crickets were gone. The nocturnal animals were gone. The owls were gone.

Every living being was gone from the surrounding area, yet I felt I wasn't alone. I didn't let that deter me, however, and kept going forward. Hopefully it was just the zone of something, and soon enough I would hear everything again.

A snarl got me to pay attention again on my surroundings. Looking around me, I spotted a very weird being not too far away from me. I hid behind a nearby tree before it could spot me, and started studying it.

Its body was definitely humanoid, but it was reminiscent of some sort of insect. It was small and thin, reaching my abdomen, with a huge head, similar to that of a fly. Its skin was a blueish green, and I could see a pair of insect-like wings on its back. In its hands was a dagger. The design was pretty simple, but it looked wickedly sharp. In one word, it was absolutely disgusting. Yeah, that's two words, sue me.

The monster was looking around, and I could hear it sniffing around. It was looking for me. It must have picked up on my scent, 'cause it started shambling towards my hiding spot.

My mind tried to come up with a plan. It was small, so it was probably kinda weak. With some luck I could beat it easily. So I got ready.

Once it was close enough to my hiding spot, I jumped on top of it, and punched it in the face. While it was stunned, I stole its dagger and shoved it as far as I could in its skull. It stopped moving instantly.

My mind took a little to catch up with me, but once it did, I started feeling sick. I had killed something, and since it could use a weapon, it might have had some level of intelligence.

All of that was washed away with new thoughts. After all, if I would have ran, it could have caught up, and then who knew how much trouble that could have ended up with. I had done the only thing that I knew could have ensured my survival. There wasn't much of a choice.

I was still feeling a little sick from all of that, but I chose to push that out of my mind. Feeling somewhat better, I turned my eyes to the weird being on the ground, but stopped dead in my tracks once I saw what was happening to it: it was turning to dust. Slowly nothing was left, except the dagger, which fell to the ground.

I was brought out of my reverie when a small chime played, and some floating yellow square appeared in front of me.

 **+60 Xp!**

 **Level up!**

 **Level up!**

…what.

I rubbed my eyes vigorously, but it didn't help: the… notifications, for lack of a better term, were still there.

I strained myself to avoid freaking out, and started thinking logically: that situation was quite familiar, actually. Shifting trough my memories, I realized the reason: I had seen something similar in a webcomic that Daniel had shown me.

Daniel… thinking that name made me think again about the fact that he was gone. They found him dead in his bed. At least he didn't feel anything. No one knew just what happened to him… he just died.

I shook my head and returned to the present. Even if my friend was dead, that was no reason to get so down.

Remembering how the protagonist of the manga did it, I said:

"Status."

 ***ding***

 **John Romano**

 **The Gamer**

 **G:0**

 **Lv: 3 (0/60 Xp)**

 **Hp: 360/360 (+4.2/s)**

 **Mp: 360/360 (+4.3/s)**

 **STR: 5**

 **DEX: 7**

 **VIT: 6**

 **INT: 6**

 **WIS: 7**

 **LUK: 8**

 **Stat points: 10**

 **Alignment: neutral good**

Alright… that really happened. Guess that sealed the deal. I was 'the gamer'. Welp, might make use of what knowledge of RPGs I had and get strong. Who knew just what I would end up against.

After some debate, I worked mainly on my INT, VIT and DEX. I had a dagger, so I had to be quick, and I really didn't want to be an idiot.

 **Hp: 390/390 (+4.8/s)**

 **Mp: 390/390 (+4.6/s)**

 **STR: 5**

 **DEX: 7 (+4) [11]**

 **VIT: 6 (+3) [9]**

 **INT: 6 (+3) [9]**

 **WIS: 7**

 **LUK: 8**

 **Stat points: 0**

With that of the way, I crouched to pick up the dagger, finally. Looking at it, I saw a small jagged line on one side. The blade was a little shorter that my forearm, but wasn't shiny. The opaqueness was probably intentional, as it was uniform all over.

 ***ding***

 **Trough the analysis of an item, a new skill was created:**

 **Observe (active) Lv: Max**

 **Information is power, and a keen eye is a very good tool to gain it.**

 **\- Displays information about an item or person**

That was getting annoying quite fast. I decided to use my new skill nonetheless, and **Observed** my new dagger

 **Iron dagger**

 **(Uncommon)**

 **A classical dagger. The blade wasn't polished, to prevent light reflection. It has a jagged side and a sharp one.**

 **+5% damage to unaware enemies**

 **+5% chance to inflict bleeding status**

Huh. Nice. Such an item would be suited well for a sneaky fighter. I would have rather went for a bow, as I wasn't one to get usually close and personal, but I really didn't have much of a choice to begin with.

Dagger in hand, I began my journey once more, still following the river.

Of course, 8 luck didn't translate in a safe travel. At least, I had managed to learn what those monsters were: my **Observe** called them grublins. Plus, I gained enough Xp to reach level seven, and some gems out of it. It seemed that they were the currency around, as they increased the counter under my name.

Stopping to set my points once more, I was amazed by how much progress I had managed to make in just a bunch of hours:

 **John Romano**

 **The Gamer**

 **G: 857**

 **Lv: 7 (20/300 Xp)**

 **Hp: 840/840 (+9.8/s)**

 **Mp: 830/830 (+9.1/s)**

 **STR: 10**

 **DEX: 17**

 **VIT: 14**

 **INT: 11 (+2) [13]**

 **WIS: 10 (+1) [11]**

 **LUK: 8 (+2) [10]**

 **Stat points: 0**

 **Alignment: neutral good**

Probably I should have specialized in something, but I only cared about getting better at the moment. I could worry about that at a later date.

The sun was slowly rising from the horizon, and I could see the end of the forest in sight. Hurrying my steps, I managed to spot a village in the distance. While I didn't need glasses to see, I still couldn't make out many details at that distance.

Setting aside my bad feelings for once, I walked out of the treeline and headed towards the village.

About halfway between the forest and the village, I stopped. My road was blocked by something I would have thought never existed: dragons. Honest to god dragons.

They were five, and were decked in armor. What surprised me was the quantity of colors: no two dragons were the same.

I could see the curiosity and wariness in their eyes, and I was pretty sure they could see the same in mine.

Our staredown lasted for no more than five minutes, after which one of them attempted to make a step towards me. Instinct overrode reason, and I bolted away.

I could hear them following me, so I did my best to get away from them: twists, sharp turns, running in circles and backtracking. I had lost sight of them, but could still hear them in the distance.

With no better ideas, I looked for a spot to hide in. Luck was on my side for once, as I saw a half-eradicated tree, with enough space underneath to hide me easily. It was also hard to spot, since I didn't even know it was there until I literally fell in it.

Keeping my breathing to a minimum, I waited in my small den for the dragons to leave. Minutes passed by, and I started feeling a tad impatient.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of steps nearby. I slowly peeked out of my spot, and saw one of the dragons nearby: this one was light blue, and looked very powerful. My curiosity took the better of me, and I used **Observe**.

 ***ding***

 **Frost Polar**

 **Frozen nightmare**

 **Ice dragon**

 **Lv: 37**

 **Hp: 4230/4230**

 **Mp: 3980/3980**

 **STR: 38**

 **DEX: 45**

 **VIT: 53**

 **INT: 28**

 **WIS: 21**

 **LUK: 25**

 **During his early years of service, he worked in Dante's freezer. From there, he showed all of his power during the war. At the end of it, he decided a change of pace was needed, so he moved with his family in the forests south of Avalar.**

That… complicated matters. If all the other soldiers were around the same level, I was absolutely fucked. Just one thing left for me to do, then. Train, train, and train.

I waited for this Frost to leave, and in the meantime fiddled around with my commands. I discovered the basic commands worked also with thoughts, so that was a plus.

 **End flashback**

"Whoa, hold up. I didn't ask for you to talk for the whole day: just summarize it a little, will ya?"

And I heard him mutter something along the lines of: "And it's not like we can spend too many chapters on this. We're already super late as it is."

I chose to ignore the last part, also because it didn't make sense, and gave Daniel a deadpan look answering:

"You asked me what brought me here. I was giving you the most exhaustive answer I could, but if you want me to be quick…"

With that, I held up a hand, and started listing on my fingers:

"Woke up, followed the river, fought a grublin, learned I was 'the gamer', fought more grublins, found the village, got followed around the forest, decided that I had to get stronger, trained for around a week, got inside the village to get an idea of where the hell I ended up, was caught, ran away again, and found you."

He was silent for a couple seconds, then shrugged and said:

"Meh. Fair enough. Now for my side of the story…"

 **I'll make a little time skip here, as we all know what happened.**

"… and that was when I saw you. Now, I believe I promised to teach you magic? Let's get to it."

I nodded eagerly, and was about to get up, but Daniel put his hand on my shoulder and shook his head:

"Not now. First, you need to feel your magic. Sit down."

I abided by his instructions, and waited for him to tell me more.

"Alright. The best way I can think to say it is: concentrate on your core. Try to find the warm energy inside you, and get used to it. Once you are, try moving a part of it towards your hands. Like this."

As he stopped talking, his hands lit up with a light blue shine. I couldn't even get my eyes off of them, until he dropped the shine and snapped his fingers in my face.

"Concentrate. This things may very well save your life someday. Now, try it yourself."

I closed my eyes, and did as Daniel said. It took a couple minutes, but I managed to feel some sort of warm energy inside me. I tried to grasp it, only for it to avoid me. I tried again, but this time I aimed for only a small part of it: it worked, and I slowly made it trail along my arm, reaching my hand. I continued that motion until I could do it at a whim, and then opened my eyes.

Daniel was giving me a proud grin, and I was pretty sure I had one too. Looking at my hands, I could see a small golden glow all around them.

A loud chime made me return to reality, and I looked up to find the reason of the sound:

 **A new reality, an old friend. (story quest)**

 **Quest completed!**

 **Enter the dragon village [OK]**

 **Escape the village [OK]**

 **?-(Meet up with Daniel) [OK]**

 **?-(Learn how to do magic) [OK]**

 **Bonus- Leave the village within 5 minutes [OK]**

 **Bonus- Punch Daniel for scaring you [X]**

 **Rewards:**

 **10.000 Xp**

 **New Teacher (optional)**

 **Bonus: new title**

 **Level up!**

 **Level up!**

The last bonus was… kinda spot on. I did want to do it at first, but I noticed he was a 'Gamer' too, and he was always better than me at RPGs. It would have been a recipe for a disaster.

Nonetheless, what was that 'teacher' thing? I pressed it, and a small pop-up appeared in front of me:

 **Teachers: since it's better to learn with some guidance than alone, teachers can help you. You can only have three at a time, and each has their own specializations in which they can help. Training with them, whether by leveling up, or by grinding skills, can give you an experience bonus, plus some skills can be learned only through them.**

That was oddly informative, but ok.

So, if I were to get Daniel as my teacher, I would gain a boost to what he would teach me? Hell yeah!

"Hey, man, you okay? You've been staring to those screens for a while now. Did something happen?"

I looked away from the text, and found a concerned and confused Daniel staring at me. I straightened up a tad, and nodded:

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry to have worried you, but something did happen. You see, 'fore I got in the village I got a quest. Half of the objectives were hidden, but it had quite a big reward, so I did it nonetheless. Still, now I completed it, and seems like the missing part was meeting you and learning magic.

"That's not all, either, as the rewards were enough Xp to dropkick me two levels forward and a **Teacher**. The last one's optional, but I think I'll take it."

Daniel's face had changed from worry to confusion while I talked, and He didn't waste time to ask me:

"Hold up. What do you mean with 'teacher'? Like someone that teaches you skills and helps you level them up faster?"

I gave a quick nod at that, and continued:

"Yeah, and helps also with leveling up in itself. Still, the quest said you're supposed to be my teacher, sooo… wanna teach me?"

He shrugged with a nonchalant look on his face, and responded to me:

"Why not? It's already lonely as it is here. I'll be your teacher."

With that, he extended his hand towards me, and I shook it. In that moment, another pop-up appeared.

 **Daniel Samuels became your teacher!**

 **Specializations:**

 **Swordplay**

 **Attack magic**

 **Special skill:**

 **Acheomensis**

 **Bonus:**

 **+10% Xp when he is in your party**

 **All specialization skills level up 10% faster**

I dismissed the pop-up almost immediately, and said:

"Let's get to work, teacher."

 **Well, there it is. You might not be very thrilled by the fact that I added a second Gamer, but hear me out first: being in a game with a friend is more stimulant, it gives a sense of satisfaction to surpass someone, and they won't let you stay stronger forever. They'll get better, and one-up you. When that happens, you can use that as an incentive to get even better. After all, if Daniel ended up being omnipotent, the story would have become an absolute bore. So, now we have someone who will compete both with and against him.**

 **Now, onto the second part: I'm late. I know, you know, even my dog knows. I'm sorry, but I got caught up a lot with school, family matters and the like. Plus, the chapter I had planned for… how long was it again? Whatever. The chapter that was supposedly gonna be in the place of this one didn't convince me at all, so I had to scratch everything and start off. My buddy Giux (his online nickname, even tough he's not on Fanfiction) has given me a couple ideas for the story later on, so I abided by his request of putting him in the story. The backstory was actually pretty structured out, but he wanted me to put that thing where Daniel interrupts John, so I did so.**

 **Before you guys ask, yes, he's basically my co-writer, but I'm still the only one writing. Why? 'Cause Giux can't even speak English, let alone write it.**

 **Giux: "Haven't you forgotten something?"**

 **Xeno: "Oh right! If you guys have questions for any of the characters in the story, you can ask them in the reviews! We're all waiting for you!"**

 **Giux: "Of course, you can also ask both Xeno and me anything, as long as you keep it T-rated."**

 **Xeno: "Yeah, that too. Now, I believe we can close for this time too! Xeno out!"**

 **Giux: "Not so fast! There's one last thing left to do! Come in everyone!"**

 **The door on the back of the room bursts open, and we can see Daniel, John, Tundra, Star, Pyra and even Zilan behind it. Daniel and John are holding a cake, while everyone else has gifts either on their backs or in their hands.**

 **Everyone except Xeno: "Happy late birthday!"**

 **Xeno: "W-what? You didn't have to…"**

 **Daniel: "Oh, come on! We're a little late, but we still didn't get the chance to party together! Now come on, let's have some fun!"**

 **Xeno: "Alright, alright. Just let me sign off here and we can start."**

 **Giux: "Naw, you guys go ahead. I'll do it."**

 **Xeno is pushed out of the room by the others, which follow immediately after.**

 **Giux: "Welp, better make this short. Sorry we can't answer the reviews, but you see how it is. If you had any questions, we'll read them and answer them in the next chapter, so don't worry. Now, 'The legend of Spyro' doesn't belong to us, the OCs belong mostly to Xeno, except John, who is mine, so review, favorite, follow and see you next time!**

 **Giux out!**


	6. I'm a father?

**3** **rd** **person P.O.V.**

The sun was nearing its zenith, the only sounds being the whispering of the wind and the murmuring river. That is, until an annoyed voice rumbled from a clearing in the forest.

"No, no, no! That's all wrong! You're supposed to make the atoms vibrate, not spin!"

Daniel said, annoyed as John made another **Vacuum sphere** instead of a **Fireball**.

It had been almost twenty-four hours since they had started working together, and as both had agreed, they had been working only on magic for the time being. Unfortunately, John didn't seem able to apply the concept behind some of the spells Daniel tried to teach him. For example, **Mana claw** was an absolute success, and so were also some passive skills like **Falcon's eye** and **Enhancement** , but when it came to elemental spells, he was an absolute failure.

"Well then, maybe you should stop being such an ass about it and try to explain better!"

Daniel sighed, and brought a hand up to his temple. In that moment, a stray thought passed him by: ' _maybe John simply isn't good with them because his expertise is supposed to be something else_.' Thus, he explained his theory to him.

"You know? Maybe you are right," John pondered, and leaned forwards to look at his friend. "after all, there was this feeling when I used **Mana claw** that I didn't have when I tried things like your **Fireball**. Like… it felt right. Or at least, that it was what I was supposed to do. You get me?"

His explanation, while lacking, still confirmed Daniel's theory. Maybe it was connected to his mana being another color, or maybe it was his System that chose so, or whatever else! The point being, he was supposed to be good at something else. Daniel had formulated some sort of half-assed plan in his mind, so he exposed also that to John:

"Alright, so I have an idea. Imma use TeS for this, but bear with me," He then lifted up his hand and started listing off his fingers: "so, we've got the different magic schools: destruction, restoration, illusion, conjuration and the like. We know that you aren't good with destruction, as it is what I tried to teach you, but we still have a couple more to try. Wanna do this?"

"As ready as ever." He rolled his shoulders a little, and then got up. "Might as well do it."

Daniel gave a satisfied nod, and tried to come up with some spells for him to try. His thoughts were cut short when a quest notification popped up in front of him:

 ***ding***

 **New quest!**

 **Aptitude test (story quest)**

 **John can't use the spells you want to teach him. Try to find out what's his specialty!**

 **Create a healing spell for John [ ]**

 **Create a defensive spell for John [ ]**

 **Create an attack spell for John [ ]**

 **Help John come up with his unique skill [ ]**

 **Form a party with John [ ]**

 **Completion rewards:**

 **5.000 Xp**

 **Increased closeness with John Romano**

 **Team quest**

 **Failure penalty:**

 **Decreased closeness with John Romano**

 **John will be pissed at you for a while**

' _Gratis Xp, huh?'_ Daniel mused, while looking over his quest. ' _Nothing wrong with that, plus John was gonna be mad whether I failed with the quest or not. Yet… team quest?'_ His eyes lingered on the unfamiliar detail for a while. ' _What's that supposed to mean? Guess I just have to wait and see.'_

Closing the tab, Daniel returned to his musings. First on the list was a healing spell. ' _Probably he should be able to do so by concentrating his mana in the areas around the wounds to accelerate the healing process.'_

To test his theory, he'd need to try it. Daniel knew he wasn't going to like it, but he still had to, so…

"Hey John?" He asked, his voice wavering a little.

"Yeah?" He turned to the side to look at him. "Got any ideas?"

Daniel took a breath to calm himself down, and said: "I need to borrow your dagger."

John was visibly confused by the request, but he complied nonetheless. With the dagger in his right hand, Daniel turned off his **Reinforcement** and made a small cut on the back of his arm.

John was, of course, alarmed by his seemingly senseless action, but Daniel held up his good arm and said:

"This is for your spells. I need you to heal me."

After John had calmed down, Daniel explained just what he wanted him to do. It took a couple tries, but he managed to close the wound easily enough.

' _It won't give me a boost of Hp. Instead, it will simply increase the Hp regen a little, but it will do.'_ Daniel reasoned to himself.

John's eyes lit up, and a smile found its way on his face, as a new window came up in front of him:

 **Dia (active & passive) Lv: 1 (02.4%)**

 **A couple Hp can save a life, but an increased regeneration works too.**

 **Active: 25 Mp/second**

 **Passive: 15 Mp/second**

 **Increase Hp regen by 2% while active. (Can use on others)**

 **Increase Hp regen by 1% passively (only on the user)**

Daniel had noticed the look in John's eyes, and as he was a bit curious too, he asked:

"So, what does it say?"

"Huh? What did you-" John stuttered for a second, until he finally righted himself and gave an actual answer. "Yeah, well, the skill is called **Dia** and as of now, it increases Hp recovery by 2%. The cost is a little high, at 25 Mp per second, but I can keep it up."

Daniel nodded, satisfied, and gave John back his dagger.

Daniel went back to his plans, but this once not for long: ' _For the next part we will need a defensive spell, but I have already something in mind.'_

"Alright, and that's one down." Daniel slammed his hands on his knees and pushed himself up. "Now, we're gonna need you to be able to protect yourself. So, I have in mind a simple shield spell. First things first, you need to-"

John took no time in cutting him off: "Condense my mana and then flatten it. If Jee-Han could come up with it, then most certainly I can too." He concluded, with a satisfied smirk on his face.

Daniel shook his head with an amused chuckle, and responded to his claims with as much sarcasm as he could muster:

"Very well then, genius," he said, punctuating the last word with a small bow. "If you are so good, then why don't you give me a practical demonstration?"

Glee filled Daniel as John's smirk wavered for a second, even if it returned just as strong the second after. John shrugged his shoulders a little, and extended his arms at his sides.

Almost a minute passed, and except for Daniel getting a tad impatient, nothing happened. Another couple of minutes passed, and still nothing. At the end of it, Daniel got fed up with waiting, and walked towards John with the intention of shaking him back to reality.

Unfortunately, something didn't agree with his idea, as he ended up slamming face first into thin air. Rubbing the offended part, Daniel opened his eyes again, but couldn't see anything different, except that John was trying, and failing, to hide his laughter. It didn't take long for him to put two and two together:

"Cheeky bastard." He growled with a scowl. "You know I'll get back at you for this." He said, annoyance thick in his voice.

John didn't give any regards to him, and brushed off the semi-threat easily enough. Daniel took the chance, and punched his arm. John let out a small 'ow', but otherwise didn't complain.

There was still a quest to finish, so they both agreed to get back on track. ' _Next on the list is an offensive spell. Destruction won't work, but what about conjuration and alteration?'_ An idea had popped up in Daniel's mind, and he relayed it almost immediately.

"If I remember correctly, back home you wanted to learn how to use a bow, right?"

John nodded slightly, but remained silent. Probably he was thinking deeply about something. Thankfully, Daniel knew exactly how to make him return to the land of the living. He whipped up his **Inventory** , and pulled out finally the bow and the quiver, after so long. Placing them in front of John seemed to do the trick, as his eyes opened so much that they could fall off. John immediately swiped the bow from Daniel, and started examining it from every angle.

"Where did you get these? You never had them with you!"

"Well, I always used my spells in the long range, and I'm not really the type to use these things. You on the other hand… well, you wanted them, so there. Plus, I always kept them in my inventory. Now please calm down, so I can explain the next spells."

Once he had finally settled down, I gave him a rundown of what he was supposed to do: basically, with conjuration he could make more arrows, and with alteration he could give them different modifications, like poisoning, explosive, high-penetration, and so many more. After a couple minutes of trying it, John managed to keep his giddiness in check, so they got to the second to last point of the list: the unique skill. Daniel really had no idea, so he just let John run wild and brainstorm a little.

"How about a spell that makes my bow become a machine gun? I think that it would be pretty nice."

Daniel shook my head, exasperated, and responded slowly: "It's the third time you asked me that. And it's the third time that I will say that you can't make something if you don't know how it's made, magic or not."

John's head dipped a little, and he gave an apologetic look. They kept quiet for a couple more minutes, and then John came back with another idea:

"Alright, hear me out: you know how I have to be fast in order to use my dagger?" I nodded, wondering where he was going to go with that. "Well, what about a spell that gives me super speed for some time? Think we can use that? Like your **Overdrive** , but even stronger?"

Daniel had to admit that his idea was pretty good, so he gave his approval. Immediately, John got to work, and Daniel added his input whenever he felt it could be useful. After around an hour of work, at sundown, they had managed to complete his special skill…

 **John's P.O.V.**

Finally… it was done. My own special skill. It wasn't exactly as I expected it, as it worked on all my stats together, instead than only my speed, but it was still awesome!

 **Haduramensis (active) Lv: 1 (00.0%)**

' **My blade is me. I am my blade.' By using your magic to empower your dagger, cleave every enemy in your way!**

 **50 Mp/second**

 **+30% to all stats**

 **+10% damage**

 **?- reach level 50 to unlock**

 **?- reach level 100 to unlock**

The only thing that was leaving me perplexed was that it was way too similar to Daniel's for my tastes. That was what I would get for copying someone else's skill.

After I was done showing off my new skill on some innocent trees, I turned to Daniel, only to see him fiddling around with his screens. Of course, I couldn't see his screens, and he assured me that he couldn't see mine, but I could recognize the gestures. He seemed to be searching for something in particular, as his hand never stopped moving. Finally, he seemed to find what he had been looking for, and typed something. Once he was done, he turned to me, and I noticed the Cheshire grin that threatened to split his face.

Before I got the chance to ask, a window popped up in front of me.

 ***ding***

 **You have been invited by Daniel Samuels in the party: "No game no life". Do you want to join?**

 **Yes/No**

Yep, that's Daniel. No matter what, he'll slip you a reference, blatant or not. Still, an invitation shouldn't be left unanswered, thus I accepted. In the moment I pressed that button, some text appeared over Daniel's head:

 **Daniel Samuels Lv: 20**

 **Guardian**

 **Hp: 2150/2150**

 **Mp: 3675/3675**

Oh. I was actually wondering why I didn't see any of those. Seemed like they appeared only on your teammates' heads. Judging by Daniel's eyes flicking over my head, he could see my own data.

That didn't last for long, as I saw Daniel's focus shifting back down, and he pressed something with a little fist bump. I was about to ask what that was all about, but a random notification stopped me in my tracks:

 ***ding***

 **New quest!**

 **Monster hunters (team quest)**

 **The realm of Convexity is in the middle of a crisis! You must defeat the creatures causing havoc!**

 **Find and defeat Haolus! [ ]**

 **Find and defeat Yolgan! [ ]**

 **Bonus: ? [ ]**

 **Bonus: ? [ ]**

 **Completion rewards:**

 **15.000 Xp**

 **New skill**

 **Bonus: ?**

 **Bonus: ?**

 **Failure penalty:**

 **One hell of a beating**

 **Possible death**

 **Warning: accepting the quest will immediately send you to the Convexity realm.**

.

..

…

….what.

I slowly turned to Daniel, and was a little startled by the fact that he was just a meter away from me. If I didn't mention it, he was taller than me by a little more than half a head, so he was a little intimidating at times.

Nonetheless, I quickly recovered, and ordered him: "Explain."

He shrugged his shoulders just a little, and started: "When I started helping you with your spells, I got a quest for it. The last point was to form a party with you, and in the rewards was a 'team quest'. Seems like these quests will appear to the both of us. Anyway, I think that's all you needed to know…?" he finished with a questioning glance, waiting for an answer.

I nodded, and said: "Do you think we should accept it? I don't know you, but this gives me a 'boss fight' kinda vibe."

He didn't even answer, as he pressed what was probably the 'Accept' button. My notification disappeared, and we were both enveloped by a bright light. Around five seconds later, the light left, letting us see a completely different scenery.

What I saw boggled my mind: all around us, were some sort of crystalline floating islands, connected by some smaller patches of crystal here and there. The sky was a deep purple, with lilac and blue blotches randomly strewn around. It was… surreal. As if no mortal should have ever been able to reach such a place, and yet, there we were.

I'd like to say that it didn't faze me much, but I would be lying. We stood like a couple of idiots for a good ten minutes, before we finally snapped out of it. Setting our heads straight, we finally heard two quite uncanny sounds: an eagle's cry and some sort of roar that was a mix of a tiger with a T-Rex. They had come from the same direction, so we hurried towards them.

The sources of those sounds were two beasts straight out of a fantasy novel: one was a wyvern. They have only two legs, and their arms are fused with the wings, just so you know. Its scales were a dirty white, with its horns, underbelly and wings being a somewhat darker shade of grey, and it was around four meters tall.

The other being was a huge falcon, almost completely black, except for the feathers around its eyes, the tips of its wings, tail and some small dots on its chest, which were purple instead. This one came up to around five meters and something.

A quick **Observe** gave me some more information on them:

 **Haolus**

 **Astral falcon**

 **Lv: 25**

 **Hp: 2031/2740**

 **Mp: 1565/2800**

 **STR: 21**

 **DEX: 35**

 **VIT: 24**

 **INT: 30**

 **WIS: 15**

 **LUK: 12**

 **?**

 **Yolgan**

 **Wyvern**

 **Lv: 30**

 **Hp: 2935/3390**

 **Mp: 2940/3210**

 **STR: 35**

 **DEX: 28**

 **VIT: 39**

 **INT: 21**

 **WIS: 25**

 **LUK: 18**

 **?**

I looked over to Daniel, who seemed to be scanning for himself their stats. A couple seconds later, he lifted his head and said in a very commanding voice while moving towards the two fighting beings: "You take care of the Falcon. I'm taking the Wyvern, and remember:" he stopped himself mid-step and turned once more to me. "If a bird can't fly, it's already half dead."

I gave him a fist bump, and we both moved towards our respective targets. I made use of Daniel's tips, both from then and when we worked on my spells, and prepared an arrow.

 **/small flashback/**

" _Remember," said Daniel "if the enemy doesn't see you, and you need to kill them, begin with poisonous arrows. So, if the fight lasts longer than expected, you can count on the fact that your enemy will get weaker the more it goes on. Got it?"_

 **/end flashback/**

Thus, I readied my bow, and shot. My aim was true, and the arrow pierced the back of the Falcon, in the point where the wing connects to the body. At the same moment, I could see Daniel throwing a quite big **Fireball** at the Wyvern. Nonetheless, I returned my attention on my enemy, and notched another arrow.

It was screeching in pain, but that didn't deter it from trying to charge into me. I moved away at the last moment, and saw Haolus' beak bury itself where I was a second before. I took advantage of the situation, and tried to shoot an arrow in its eye. Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough, and the hit merely grazed its beak. Still, that was enough, as the arrow was of the explosive variant.

Haolus recoiled, but didn't seem too affected by what was basically a grenade going off on his nose, except for a small crack. He tried charging at me again, but I moved out of the way once more. What I didn't keep in mind was that it wasn't stupid, and it expected for me to move away. Thus, in one swift motion, it brought its talon on my chest.

 **-53 Hp**

It hurt, but I was prepared. In fact, I whipped out my dagger and planted it right in what could be called its ankle. It shrieked in pain once more, and lifted its talon off me in reaction. I capitalized on that, conjured the sharpest arrow I could, and let it loose.

I nailed Haolus right in the eye, and skewered its head, with my arrow flying out of its top. It was immobile for a moment, and then fell on its back with a thud.

 **+1500 Xp!**

I was about to go help Daniel, when Haolus' body started glowing. It slowly disintegrated in a shower of sparks, which started dancing to a nonexistent wind, becoming more compact by the second. Once it was done, I approached what was left of the former Astral falcon, and gave it a once over with **Observe**.

 **Astral falcon's egg**

 **Grade: Legendary**

 **Astral falcons are a little like Phoenixes, and this is the proof. Normally, an Astral falcon would return to being a chick, but since this one died prematurely, it returned to being an egg.**

Wow. Now that I didn't expect. How was I even supposed to carry that thing around? It was bigger than a ostrich egg, for fuck's sake! Maybe… I could put it in my inventory for a little while?

I decided to test my theory, and in fact, I could! I turned around to look for Daniel, and there he was, holding an egg too. I noticed his hair was a little singed, but he was fine for the most part. I was a little curios, so I asked:

"Well? How did it go?"

 **Daniel's P.O.V.**

 **/five minutes earlier/**

I ran towards the Wyvern, and readied a **Fireball**. I made it stronger, as to make the most damage possible at the beginning. After a couple seconds, I lobbed it at Yolgan, and hit it square in the face. Then I casted **Frost** on its legs and ran towards it. Unfortunately, it got free and slammed its tail in my chest. I was thrown back a couple of meters, and I rolled a little before I managed to stop and get back on my feet.

Once I lifted my eyes, I was greeted by a stream of fire coming my way. I rolled away just in time, but my hair felt really hot for some reason. Returning my focus back to the matter at hand, I dived out of the way from another stream of fiery death.

I was getting really mad, so I unleashed on Yolgan a **Thunder** and **Aeroblade** combo, charring some of its scales and leaving a pretty big gash on its muzzle. That must have enraged it, as it roared and charged me. I wasn't going to back down, so I ran towards it with all my speed. Once I was close enough, I jumped as high as I could, and pointed my sword down. I landed on Yolgan's head, and in one swift motion I beheaded it.

 **+2000 Xp**

I stumbled a little when I landed, but I was otherwise fine. Turning back to the rapidly dissipating Wyvern, I saw what looked like an egg within the ashes. **Observe** relayed:

 **Wyvern's egg**

 **Grade: Legendary**

 **Wyverns are distant cousins of the Dragons. Unlike Dragons, Wyverns aren't limited to a single element, but it takes longer for them to master a certain one. The actual question is how have you got this? Mother Wyverns never leave their eggs unattended. Hopefully you're happy now, you dirty mother killer.**

And then I felt terrible. Welp, just one thing I could do at that point: take care of the egg and of the eventual hatchling.

With that, I picked up the egg and made my way towards John. From what I could see, he handled the fight well, and got an egg like me too. Then, he turned around and saw me. Finally, he asked:

"Well? How did it go?"

I stared at him blankly for a couple seconds before saying: "Well enough, I guess." I looked around me for a second. "So… how do we get out?"

 ***ding***

 **Monster hunters (team quest)**

 **Quest completed!**

 **Find and defeat Haolus! [OK]**

 **Find and defeat Yolgan! [OK]**

 **? (Only John): Fight Haolus only on the ground [OK]**

 **? (Only Daniel): Decapitate Yolgan [OK]**

 **Rewards:**

 **15.000 Xp**

 **New skill**

 **Bonus: Infernis armor (chestplate) x1 (Daniel)**

 **Bonus: Seraph armor (gauntlets) x1 (John)**

 **Return**

"Oh, so that's how." I looked up at John. "Welp, let's go, shall we?" And so, I pressed the return button.

After another flash, we returned to our training spot. The moon was low, so it could have been either late evening or very early in the morning. Still, I didn't get much time to think about it, as two notifications appeared before me:

 **+15.000 Xp**

 ***ding***

 **New skill!**

 **Spirit bind (active) Lv: Max**

 **Binding your soul with another being, you can call upon it in your time of need. The binded being is called a familiar, and it will grow as you do.**

 **Binds a creature as your familiar within a 10 meter radius**

 **1500 Mp/use**

I gave a look in my inventory, and sure enough, a new piece of armor sat there. Equipping it, I gave myself a once over. My new chestplate was absolutely badass. Its base was black with some red details here and there, and the bronze rimming made me feel like I was wearing a piece of lava.

When I stopped gawking at my new armor, I looked at John, and noticed his new gauntlets: they had a base of what looked like reinforced leather almost as long as his arm, covered with small pieces of a metal similar to silver, golden markings here and there, giving it a very holy-like aspect.

I was brought out of my reverie when John said: "Well, Daniel," and he pulled out his egg from the inventory, "how about we try out this new skill?" With a smile threatening to split his face.

I couldn't avoid smiling a little myself, and answered: "Time to test it out." With that, I put my egg down in front of me, and concentrating on my new skill.

Around thirty seconds afterwards, I heard the telltale sound of a crack. Opening my eyes, I saw a small crack on the top of the egg, the latter wobbling a bit. A second after, the crack opened a little more, and I could see the tip of a small muzzle poking out. A couple wobbles more, and the crack reached half of the egg. I moved closer to get a better look, and in that moment the egg burst open.

What I saw was a small wyvern, barely long even a meter from the tip of its tail to the muzzle. Its scales were white with a touch of light blue, its horns a silvery color, same as its underbelly, while the wings were a light cyan.

Its eyes opened, and it looked around for a second, stopping when it saw me. Immediately I was glomped by seven kilograms of wyvern, and it took quite an effort to avoid falling. Looking down to the little hatchling currently nuzzling my chest, a window appeared:

 ***ding***

 **?**

 **Wyvern (male)**

 **Lv: 1 (0/20)**

 **Hp: 120/120 (+1.4/s)**

 **Mp: 160/160 (+1.9/s)**

 **STR: 3**

 **DEX: 4**

 **VIT: 2**

 **INT: 6**

 **WIS: 3**

 **LUK: 8**

 **?**

What were those question marks supposed to be? Maybe it was because he didn't have a name yet? Welp, I couldn't the poor kid stay nameless, now could I?

"Now then, little one," I started with the most official voice I had: "from this day forward, your name shall be Sora."

The little wyvern, now named Sora, looked up at me in contemplation for a couple seconds, then he lightened up and squealed: "Daddy!"

 **And it was in that moment that Daniel knew, he fucked up.**

 **Yeah, yeah, I'm late again. And so? I have way too many things on my plate as it is. My time writing has been cut considerably, so I'm sorry to say that I might have to change the schedule to post every two weeks. At least I will have some leeway, and will be able to update somewhat more regularly. At least, I'll try.**

 **It seems like no one reviewed the last chapter, except for Dragon_Uprising. Thanks, btw.**

 **Really, people, I need the feedback! I want to know what you think, even if it's just a couple words! Really, every review gives me the will to write some more, and if it helps, the more revs, the quicker I might update, you know?**

 **Well, that was pretty much everything. So, without further ado, Xeno out!**

 **P.S. do y'all even read the notes? I'm kinda curious.**


	7. Tutorial over!

**John's P.O.V**

The moon was high in the sky, and Daniel was looking after Sora and Nox, my falcon, so I had free roam of the forest. Moving between trees Naruto-style was tiring, but also a good way to train, if what Daniel said was true. Nonetheless, I wasn't only planning to train my stats that night.

In fact, I had my **Mana shield** and **Reinforcement** up, and an arrow at the ready. Yep, I was hunting. As one would guess, Daniel was way stronger than me, so I wanted to reach his level. Thankfully, I knew how to make IDs, so I had chosen to take some time and train.

With **Falcon's eye** I spotted my first preys for the night: a small bunch of apes. Pulling back the string of my bow, I aimed at the biggest one, and let it go. The arrow soared in a straight line, and hit the ape right in the chest, the fragments hitting also some of the others.

 **+150 Xp!**

Yes, fragments. In fact, I had been working on a good amount or new arrows. In that moment I had: piercing, explosive, poisonous, fragmentation, narcotic and berserk arrows. The last two were born after a little discussion, in which both Daniel and I agreed that we needed also some stealth skills. Thus, I worked on shrinking some arrows and using them as darts, and from there we copied a little 'Assassin's creed 4' with the effects. Useful as they were, they didn't seem to get much use lately. Thankfully, all the different variations fell under a single skill, so it didn't even matter:

 **Conjuration (active & passive) Lv: 14 (98.7%)**

 **Conjuration is the art of creating items out of pure mana. The size of the item depends on the quantity of mana used.**

 **Available conjurations:**

 **\- Arrows: 15 Mp/s (each)**

 **\- Darts: 5 Mp/s (each)**

Thus, all my arrows and darts shot contributed. And, as for the modifications:

 **Alteration (active & passive) Lv: 15 (14.8%)**

 **Alteration is the art of modifying the attributes of an object trough mana. Multiple modifications can be applied, but the strain stacks up.**

 **Available alterations:**

 **\- Explosive: 5 Mp/s**

 **\- Piercing: 2 Mp/s**

 **\- Poisonous: 2 Mp/s (poison lasts 00:02:15)**

 **\- Fragmented: 5 Mp/s (max fragments: 11)**

 **\- Narcotic: 7 Mp/s (sleep lasts 00:04:45)**

 **\- Berserker: 10 Mp/s (rage lasts 00:03:30)**

My **Alteration** was a level higher because I wanted to try it on things I hadn't conjured, but let's get back on track.

The uninjured apes panicked, and began looking around frantically, trying to spot me. I wasn't in the mood to get found out, so a couple explosions did the trick.

 **+50 Xp!**

 **+50 Xp!**

 **+45 Xp!**

 **+50 Xp!**

 **+45 Xp!**

 **+45 Xp!**

I was about to leave, when I noticed one of the apes was still twitching. A quick piercing arrow later, and it was dead.

 **+50 Xp!  
**

* * *

Half an hour later, I was getting stronger quite easily, and my level had risen a little, both from the apes and the team quest.

 **John Romano**

 **The Gamer**

 **G:14.734**

 **Lv: 17 (95/30.000)**

 **Hp: 1860/1860 (+20.2/s)**

 **Mp: 1880/1880 (+21.0/s)**

 **STR: 17 (21.2)**

 **DEX: 23 (28.7)**

 **VIT: 16 (20)**

 **INT: 19**

 **WIS: 22**

 **LUK: 18**

 **Stat points: 17**

 **Alignment: neutral good**

 **Affiliation: No game no life**

My physical stats had risen a little, as Daniel made me train for a couple of days also in the old-fashioned way. Not that I complained, of course. Still, between taking care of Sora and Nox, we really didn't have much time left. Thus, we had resorted to training only one at a time, me during the night and Daniel in the day.

I kept at it for some more, but at dawn I had to stop and return to the base. Breaking into a sprint, I moved towards the glade at record speed, gaining another DEX point for it.

In the middle of the clearing, I found Daniel sitting in front of the remnants of a campfire, holding a bundle of feathers and one of scales, both enveloped in a **Rouge's cloak** each.

Daniel...was tired, for lack of a better term. His eyes were lost in the void, his shoulders were slumped…everything of him screamed 'please, no more!'. Thankfully for him, I approached to start my turn and asked quietly: "So, how did it go?"

He looked at me with a mixture of boredom and exasperation, and said in an even voice: "My arms are so tired of holding these two that my STR rose. By two levels. I wish I was kidding."

I winced a little at that, and took the little ones from his arms.

"C'mon, go. It's your turn to have fun. I'll stay here."

He immediately rose up to his feet, and booked it. Looking in the spot he occupied, I was only left with a cloud of dust, which obviously found its way in my lungs. My hacking woke up Sora and Nox, which started stirring in my arms. A minute later, they were completely awake, and the second afterwards I had to put them down.

The kids stared at me expectantly, and I knew exactly what they wanted. Thus, I opened my Inventory and pulled out two fishes I had put away last evening. Daniel was smart enough to build a fishing rod, thus we had ensured a source of food for the kids. Daniel also managed to bring some fruit and vegetables, somehow, so that they could have some variety. Nox preferred meat, but would eat some greenery here and there, while Sora was more neutral towards what he ate.

I did ask Daniel where he got that stuff, but all he would say would be: "One day I'll show you. For now, don't worry about it." Thus, I stopped even asking, and just went with it.

A week had passed since the two little buggers hatched, and their growth rate was absolutely astounding! At three days old, Nox started molting for the first time, and his tuft had already given space to mature feathers. Sora, instead, had his scales harden within 24 hours of his hatching, and could sneeze small amounts of smoke already. We attributed that to **Spirit bind** , as technically if your familiar was a baby it wouldn't be much help, would it?

Nonetheless, what was more disconcerting was that they already had both the intelligence of an eight year old, along with the super growth. And of course, they had reached the 'Why?' age. This time, they were actually quieter than normal. I was about to inquire on that, when Nox spoke up.

"Dad? Can I ask you something?"

I gave the little falcon a smile, even tough he was already almost the size of a full-grown normal falcon, and said: "Sure, kid. Ask away."

He was fidgeting a little, but shook his head and replied:

"Where does uncle Daniel go every day, and where do you go every night?"

I sighed. We were both expecting one of them to ask that, but not so fast. I had no idea how to answer that without sounding crazy, and normally Daniel would deal with their questions. This time, though, we had to be there both.

I sent a message to Daniel, telling him to come back, and sat cross-legged in front of Nox and Sora. They both were still waiting for an answer, but I chose to simply stall, and retort with another question: "So, tell me. What made you want to ask that right now?"

That time, Sora explained: "Well, whenever dad is gone, I can see numbers on the corner of my vision, and there's this weird blue square that appears in front of me saying: 'Level up!' and it's very weird, and when Nox wakes up there's a huge bunch of them in front of him everytime, so… can you explain that?" He finished breathing in a huge gulp of air, obviously winded from his tirade.

I chuckled a little, and retorted: "Yes, I can explain that. But first, I think we should wait for Daniel to get back, as he knows more about this than I do…" In that moment, Daniel popped out of the treeline. "And speaking of, there he is."

Then, I relayed everything to him, and he started explaining about the System to the kids. To make it short, everytime either of us would gain Xp, our own familiar would gain the same amount of Xp, thus eventually leveling up too. Supposedly, they could also increase their stats by training, and we got to testing that too. Running around isn't easy for a wyvern, but in the end Sora got 1 VIT, so there was that.

Daniel had agreed to teach them the basics of magic, so that they could make their own skills, and neither of us was disappointed. Nox seemed to favor shadow-based skills, while Sora was more of an elementalist, like Daniel. His favorite seemed to be electricity, at the moment, tough.

All of that took around two or three hours, after which they had lunch, and we all had a good look at their stats, as they had quite a lot of points to spend and wanted to see whether they should use them or leave them for the moment.

 **Nox Romano**

 **Astral falcon (male)**

 **Lv: 9 (80/500 Xp)**

 **Hp: 950/950 (+10.0/s)**

 **Mp: 980/980 (+10.4/s)**

 **STR: 4**

 **DEX: 7**

 **VIT: 5**

 **INT: 8**

 **WIS: 6**

 **LUK: 9**

 **Stat points: 40**

 **Alignment: neutral good**

 **Affiliation: No game no life**

* * *

 **Sora Samuels**

 **Wyvern (male)**

 **Lv: 9 (375/500 Xp)**

 **Hp: 960/960 (+10.2/s)**

 **Mp: 970/970 (+10.1/s)**

 **STR: 5**

 **DEX: 4**

 **VIT: 6**

 **INT: 7**

 **WIS: 4**

 **LUK: 8**

 **Stat points: 40**

 **Alignment: lawful neutral**

 **Affiliation: No game no life**

From what they said, Sora wanted to be a tank-type, with some emphasis on his INT, so he could use a couple strong spells just in case. Nox, instead, was more of a rouge-type, very fast, very smart, with a good amount of illusions, and some offensive spells to get out of a pickle.

Our team was becoming more and more like a true rpg team. We had the DPS, Daniel, the support, me, and two future rouge and tank. Maybe, just maybe, we could have gotten out of the forest and started visiting the new world around us finally.

* * *

 **/time skip/**

Two days after all that ordeal, we were getting ready to visit the dragon village, finally. We had all grown a little, me and Daniel having a level of 20 and 22 respectively, and the kids had 14 for Sora and 13 for Nox.

The way towards the edge of the forest was quite nice, but when we caught sight of the village we remained a tad confused. While we had been away, a wall had been built around the small village. It wasn't extremely big, mind you. Around four to five meters tall if I had to guess. Nonetheless, we needed a way to get in, thus Daniel and I tried to come up with a plan.

Unfortunately, Sora wasn't going to wait, anymore and rushed to the gate. There, he was stopped by two guards, who started questioning him. I couldn't really hear what they were saying, but they didn't seem too hostile.

 **Sora's P.O.V.**

Finally we were there! The dragon village that dad spoke so much about! I was so excited to see it, that I forgot the first rule dad told us: don't get away from the group. So, I rushed out towards the big door, but two mean guys stopped me before I could get in. They looked a little like me, but they wore armor all over and had four legs, and their wings were on their backs, and their scales were different colors from mine.

The one on the left spoke up: "Identify yourself, hatchling."

' _He used some very weird words. A little like dad, if I had to compare them.'_ The other one, must have understood that I didn't get it, as he translated for me:

"He asked what your name was, little one."

' _Oh, so that was what he meant! Why do adults have to make everything confusing?'_ Anyway, I smiled and said: "My name is Sora! And you are?"

The nice one, who was green, said: "I'm Lytos. This guy right here," and he pointed to the other one, who was red, "is Blaze. Now, do you mind if I ask a question?"

I shook my head, and waited for his question.

"Alright then. Just what are you? You're obviously not a dragon."

"I'm a wyvern!"

I didn't know why, but they looked shocked when I said that. ' _Maybe it isn't a good thing to be a wyvern? Maybe they don't like wyverns? Maybe-'_

"Everyone thought wyverns didn't exist anymore! It has been over a hundred years since a wyvern has been seen! This is unbelievable!"

' _So that's why! But why didn't dad tell me that wyverns were so rare?'_ While the two dragons were freaking out, I saw dad motioning for me to get there. _'Uh-oh. I'm in trouble, aren't I?'_ I then turned to the guards, and managed to get their attention again.

"Look, it's nice meeting you and all, but I really have to go. Dad's probably mad right now that I left him and the others behind, sooo… I've got to go!"

And with that, I ran towards dad. That is, as much as I could run, which was more like crawling actually. Still, when I reached dad, he didn't look happy.

"Sora, what did I tell you? You shouldn't rush off like this, I have reasons for giving you rules, you know." He covered his forehead with his hand, and sighed. "Just… please, don't get away from us again. I don't want you to risk getting in trouble. Do you understand?"

I nodded my head vigorously, and said: "Yes, I understand. I'm sorry, dad. I won't do it again." Then I gave him my best apologetic look.

He shook his head, and sighed. "Remember that I do these things because I care, alright? I'm not mad, just worried." Then, he smiled a little. "Now, as you already broke the ice with the guards, we might as well go and introduce ourselves, should we?"

Uncle John shrugged, and followed dad out of the woods. Nox and I exchanged a look, and tagged along. The two guards looked confused when they saw all of us, but we all kinda expected it. Dad did say that it might happen, after all.

Once we had all reached the gate, dad started speaking:

"A good day to you, my friends. My name is Daniel, and I'd believe I'm the impromptu leader of this group… right?" he looked at uncle John, who nodded to him. "Yes, so. I believe you have heard of the rumor about a weird being lurking around the village some time ago, right?" Both the guards nodded, so dad kept going: " That being was me. Now, as you can see, the group grew a little, and we had enough of staying in the forest, so we thought to visit this place. But, as you can tell, the door is closed. Would you mind opening for us?"

The two looked at each other, and then Lytos said: "We can't do that without authorization from the higher ups, so unless someone guarantees for you, then you-"

Lytos was cut off from Blaze: "I will guarantee for them. This… Daniel fellow saved my daughter a month ago, along with her best friend. I admit that I don't really know about the others, but I'm willing to trust them for the time being."

Dad bowed a little to Blaze, and said to him: "Thank you, Blaze. I'll make sure your trust isn't misplaced."

Lytos shrugged, and flew up on the wall. A couple seconds later, the door made a big noise and it opened slowly. We all followed Mr. Blaze inside, while he was talking with dad about some thing or the other. I wasn't really paying attention. What I did pay attention to was our surroundings. Everything was so new! I could see dragons almost everywhere, and it was a little confusing, but I liked it!

After some time, we stopped in front of a building, and Mr. Blaze motioned for us to get inside. We all complied, and he shut the door behind us. He guided us to a room with a big table, and gestured for us to sit down. Dad sat in front of Mr. Blaze, I was at his left, uncle John sat at his right, and Nox was perched on my chair, for whatever reason.

Mr. Blaze was staring at dad quietly, and he did the same. Finally, dad spoke: "I believe we all know just why you brought us here, so let's get to the point. What is it that you want to know?"

Mr. Blaze was quiet for a second, then he decided to answer: "Quick and direct to the point. Very well. My first questions would be: who and what are you, and then what is it that brought you to our village?"

"Fair enough," Dad said, nodding. "as I said before, I am Daniel, and this," He pointed to uncle John. "is John. We are 'humans', or 'human' if you want to indicate only one. Then we have Sora," And he pointed at me. "who is a wyvern, and my son. Finally, we have Nox. He is an 'Astral flacon', and is John's son."

"For what brought us here…" Dad continued, "Well, we have been living in the forest at the edge of the village for some time now. You can understand that such a place is not very good for raising children," And he gestured towards me and Nox again. "Thus, we agreed that a change in scenery would do us good, so we chose to try and get a house here. Is that sufficient?" He concluded, crossing his arms and keeping a straight face.

Mr. Blaze nodded, and said in a friendlier tone: "There is more I am curious about, but it should be sufficient for now. I can spot a lie when I see one, and you have been honest. That, or you are one very good liar." He then shook his head, chuckling a little. "Nonetheless, if you want to stay you need to know our rules. I can lend you my copy, if you want. Ancestors know I've learned them perfectly at this point."

We all kept talking like that for some time, but then Mr. Blaze said he had to return to his post, so he was gonna call a friend of his to help us find a house. The friend he spoke about was a blue dragon. He was very big, and he looked kinda surprised to see uncle John, but said nothing about it. When Mr. Blaze left, dad finally spoke:

"Well then, sir Frost. I would enjoy exchanging pleasantries, but I believe you have already met one of us, and I know of you already, so why don't we skip all of this and get to business?" He then clapped his hands in front of himself, and continued: "Houses. Do you know any good ones that are empty as of now?"

I saw Mr. Frost get ready to speak, but he paused before saying anything.

And so did everything else.

* * *

 **Daniel's P.O.V.**

 **Welcome to the shop menu!**

 **Here you can buy all sorts of stuff, as long as long as you know of a shop that sells it, or can make it for you. Remember that all purchases made on order take time to be completed. You can see how much time you have to wait in the 'Orders' menu!**

 **For now, as you can see, you can only buy houses, and as you'd be expecting, they will cost you a pretty penny. But don't worry! Since it's your first house, you will receive a 25% discount!**

 **P.S. with all purchases, the shopkeeper in question will believe that you placed an order, and when you will receive it they will believe you picked it up yourself.**

 **P.P.S. the time stop is a one-time thing.**

' _Definitely didn't expect that.'_ I thought. _'But I guess it does have its uses. Now, what to choose…'_ Thus, I started skimming trough the different possibilities. There weren't that many, so I eliminated them one by one, until I found one that seemed good enough for us: 4 rooms, 2 bathrooms, not too far from the outer wall, and well within our budget. Buying it would leave us with 8K total, but it was good enough. Hopefully.

Nonetheless, I accepted the purchase, and everything returned to normal. I looked up to Frost, and saw him nodding.

"Very well. If you are content with that, I will guide you there. Let's go." Then he started walking in a seemingly random direction, and we followed him. The others were giving me questioning glances, but I told them through a message that I would explain later.

A couple minutes later, we stopped in front of a building with light brown walls, two floors tall and a classic flat roof. I was already planning to get supplies in order to change the roof, though. _'I don't really enjoy that style.'_ Frost led us in, and I was quite surprised that the place already had some basic furnishing. Nothing fancy, but it was enough for the moment. It even had a cellar of all things! Not that it would matter much, as our Inventory could keep everything fresh, no matter how long it stayed in storage.

Once our little tour ended, and we agreed on the deal, Frost walked us to the village's council hall, so that we could fill out the paperwork. It was all pretty similar to human bureaucracy, so I'll spare you the details. Nonetheless, once that was done, we picked up the key, making the house finally ours.

Once we were outside, my stomach made itself known, along with the rest of out wacky family following along. Looking up, I realized it was already late for lunch, so I turned towards Frost, who was sporting an amused smile, and asked:

"So, you know anywhere good to have some lunch?"

* * *

 **Xeno's back! Know you guys were waiting for a long time, but…**

 **Bah, I won't even apologize, you know anyway it's all excuses! The fact is that I kept switching from this chapter to the one for my other story, and I couldn't decide what to write, and then I just gave up for a while! Now, I'm writing this at 12:47 am and I don't even care that it's not really long, read this, and I'll whip something else up for the 21** **st** **. In the meantime, you could check put my other story. It's a Steven Universe one, just so you know, and it isn't a Gamer story.**

 **Shameless self-publishing aside, we're almost at 3K views! Bloody awesome work, people! Take some cookies!**

 **[::] [::] [::] [::] [::] [::] [::]**

 **Ahem, anyway, as always I don't own 'The legend of Spyro', I do own Daniel, Sora, Zilan, Seth, Pyra, Tundra, Star, Frost, Blaze, Lytos. Giux owns John and Nox.**

 **Buh-bye!**

 **Oh, and before you ask, there won't be anymore Gamers in the story other than who is now.**


	8. Break 1: hints

**Daniel's P.O.V.**

* * *

 **Thank you for waiting!**

 **The update 0.5.1a of the 'Gamer' system has been installed!**

 **New features:**

 **Skill upgrades (tap to see upgradable skills)**

 **Elemental affinities visible**

 **Skill screen has been modified (not** **too** **much)**

 **More status tabs**

 **Perks added**

 **Options screen added**

 **That's all. We hope you have a happy life!**

That's what I woke up to. It didn't seem too bad, but the changed skills… I checked immediately, and these were the changes:

 **Acheomensis (Active/Passive) Lv: 2/10 (61.5%)**

 **Pervade your body and weapon with the power of the soul.**

 **49 Mp/second**

 **+31% to all stats**

 **+11% damage**

Every skill now had a level cap, and the descriptions changed a bit. Nonetheless, I didn't let it bother me too much. The skills I could upgrade were: **Fireball** , which became faster, **Frost** , same as before, **Thunder** , with a bigger effective range, and **Aeroblade** , with sturdier blades. Sure enough also the others knew of the update by then, if they were awake that is, thus I should've gone to check up on them… but I chose not to.

I stayed in bed, and checked the other news: the affinities and the status tabs. Basically, now the status screen was separated into 4 tabs: the stats, which was still the same, the affinities;

 **Daniel Samuels**

 **Fire: 21**

 **Ice: 18**

 **Water: 0**

 **Earth: 0**

 **Air: 20**

 **Electricity: 17**

 **Nature: 0**

 **Energy: 2**

 **Undead: 0**

 **Time: 0**

 **Light: 0**

 **Darkness: 1 (Blocked) [0]**

Apparently, while I had the aptitude, something was blocking my ability to use darkness. Dammit.

Anyway, the third tab were my relationships;

 **John Romano: +100 (best friend)**

 **Sora Samuels: +100 (father)**

 **Nox Romano: +90 (uncle)**

 **Pyra Sun: +20 (mysterious hero)**

 **Star Polar: +20 (friendly but scary being)**

 **Frost Polar: +5 (N/A)**

And the perks:

 **Obtained perks:**

 **Small mana capacity**

 **Increases Mp by 50%**

 **Increases Mp regen by 50%**

 **Perk points: 4**

 **Available perks:**

 **Machine mind (1)**

 **Cost:1 Pp**

 **Allows total focus on a task for 5 minutes a day**

 **Demon blood (1)**

 **Cost:5 Pp**

 **Unlocks partially your ? and grants the skill 'Demonic presence'**

 **Unlockable perks:**

 **Machine mind (2)**

 **Unlock: buy "Machine mind (1)"**

 **Allows total focus for 10 minutes a day**

In theory, I would gain a perk point every five levels, or maybe two every ten? Whichever, it would be easily understood with some grinding. Having decided that I had been lazing around enough, I slipped out of bed, and made my way downstairs.

In the kitchen, the only one already awake was Nox. Looking out of the window, I noticed that it was actually quite early in the morning. I chose to let the two lazy bums sleep, and proceeded to make breakfast for everyone with the groceries John and I had buyed yesterday. In the meantime, I checked up on what changes Nox had seen from the update: everything was the same with him, but that was expected.

Together, we theorized that affinities were just like stats, so we should better get to training them. Also, I was indeed right, as perk points were awarded every five levels. I chose to grind my ID and level afterwards, unlock **Demon blood (1)** and see just what were those question marks. Just as I was done with that thought, Sora finally woke up, and started eating his breakfast, falling asleep once more after that.

Nox let out a small sigh, while I shook my head and smiled at Sora's sleepiness. Since it was as good a time as any, I told Nox my plan for the morning, and left a plate with breakfast for John on the table. Slipping in my room, I started spamming empty IDs. Something new came up soon:

 ***ding***

' **ID create/escape' leveled up to 20!**

 **Available dungeons:**

 *** Lycan wolf dungeon (completed X3)**

 *** Ape soldier dungeon (completed X5)**

 *** Grublin dungeon (completed X2)**

 *** Time dilatation (1:2 ratio) [NEW]**

' _Well… that's useful, I suppose. Right now, though, it's not what I wanted. Give me some stronger enemies!'_ I was thinking. In the meantime, I still hadn't stopped flipping my ID on and off. It took a good couple hours, but finally I got a new dungeon at level 25, the **Small fire golem** dungeon. Wandering downstairs again, I finally found John awake in the living room.

"Hey there, Dan! You get any good dungeons?" He waved at me, wearing his usual small grin.

"I actually wanted to ask if you wanted to join me for a test run." I shrugged "Hearing 'golem' isn't too reassuring, you know."

His eyebrow rose a bit at that. "Golem? Now that's new. By the way, I heard you got a perk called 'Demon blood', yeah?" I quietly nodded. " Ok, because I have one called Angel blood. Our mothers got some explaining to do." We both chortled a bit at his joke, but turned serious soon after.

I shook my head a little in thought. "This is suspicious," I muttered "our powers seem to be getting more and more like opposites. And yet, there doesn't seem to be any sort of reason for that. Plus, there's also that blank in the perk description. In the way it's worded, it looks like it just allows us to do something we were supposed to always have the ability to, but what could it be?" Both of us mulled over it for a while, and then a revelation hit John.

"Wait, what if my joke was unintentionally true, and in our families there were demons and angels?"

I shook again my head, much more firmly than before. "I doubt it. Unless it were quite far in our ancestry, we would have seen some sort of proof to that, however small. Nonetheless, we don't have any solid clue about that, so for now it's useless to try and make sense of it."

John jolted out of his semi-trance, and nodded with me. "Yeah, for now let's put our heads to something we can do. Like kicking golem ass, for example."

With no more words to be said, I opened the golem ID, and we both equipped our weapons and armor once more. Outside, no one was in sight, although that was kinda to be expected. As we made our way towards the center of the town, we could hear a lot of stomping gradually getting closer. Finally in sight, we examined our newest enemies.

Their forms varied: some were quadrupedal, others were some sort of insectoid centaurs, while more had a humanoid build. What they had in common though, was the overheated rocks they were made from, and the unbridled hate we could feel coming from them.

A **Frost** spell killed 2 golems instantaneously, and an explosive arrow between them shot pieces of frozen stone in every direction, staggering the mob long enough for me to jump into the fray. My blade cleaved the air, as more and more golems fell in pieces. They managed to circle me, and everytime one fell, another got a hit on me. My breathing was getting ragged, and even though John's arrows got rid of one enemy or two with every shot, he couldn't use anything too powerful, as he would risk hurting me too.

"Daniel! I have an idea! Buy me a couple seconds, then get outta there!" He shouted from the sidelines.

I did the first thing that popped up in my mind: I activated my **Acheomensis** , and took a page from Link's book, performing a spin attack. Finally with some space, I began to slash wildly around, sending **Aeroblades** into anything around me. With only a few stragglers remaining, I pulled back, allowing John a clear shot. When I looked towards him, my eyes almost bugged out of my skull at what he was holding.

" **HADOUKEN** **!** " He let loose of the mighty energy sphere, finishing off all the remaining golems. After the smoke dispersed, we saw just how much damage we had caused: the village was completely in ruins.

 **Battle over!**

 **Killed: 15 Small fire golem lv:20 (Xp: 100×15=1.500)**

 **Killed: 9 Small fire golem lv:21 (Xp: 110×9=990)**

 **Killed: 3 Small fire golem lv:22 (Xp: 120×3=360)**

 **Total Xp: 2.850**

 **G collected: 7.050**

 **Daniel level up!**

 **Nox level up!**

 **Skill level up!**

 **Aeroblade: 16-17**

The pop-up made us jump a bit. Scanning it, I realized what it meant.

"Seems like loot now is automatically collected. Good for us, I guess." I shrugged.

John chortled a bit hearing that. "True. Imagine if whenever we killed something gems kept appearing. Now that would be hard to explain."

Checking the effect of the fight on my status, my face blanched.

 **Lv: 23 (Xp: 750/250.000)**

 **Hp: 410/2.580**

 **Mp: 3.780/4.365**

' _I was THAT close to death?! Thank whatever gods are out there I bailed when I did!'_ I immediately called John, and made him use **Dia** until he ran out of Mp. I was still missing a couple hundred Hp, but those would heal quickly enough. I had definitely learned something from that: while way stronger that a normal human, I was nowhere near invincible.

Thus, one level higher, and several thousand G richer, I made my way to look for another bunch of golems. In the meantime, I did my best to make some crowd control spells, as I was lacking in that department.

 **Steel-nado lv: 1/100 (70.5%)**

 **Converge wind all around you, then slice n' dice!**

 **150 Mp/s**

 **Requires a sword**

 **Max time: 5 sec. (More will make you dizzy)**

 **Mini meteor lv:1/100 (25%)**

 **Basically an overcharged fireball. BOOM!**

 **100 Mp/shot**

 **Explosion range: 2.5 meters**

 **Blizzard lv:2/100 (10%)**

 **If you like snow, you'll love this! If not… run.**

 **200 Mp/s**

 **High chance of freezing the enemy**

 **Range: 3.25 meters in front of the caster, or 1.1 meters all around.**

With some new skills in my arsenal, the golems were much easier to deal with. Three hordes later, and Nox had leveled up again, along with Sora. Too bad that John and I were having some serious trouble leveling up again. At that point, we decided to simply steamroll it, and than going through it all over again at double Xp, thus we simply spammed highly powerful spells at every group of golems we saw, without worrying about Mp.

That attitude rewarded us a bit better, as John's **Conjuration** and **Alteration** both hit level 35, and the **Hadouken** went to 6. On my side, **Blizzard** was level 13, and **Mini meteor** hit 10. Both were upgraded with enhanced damage.

Once neither of us could find any golems, we returned to the middle of the village, and guess what? There was the boss!

It was something resembling Ifrit from Final Fantasy 11, but completely made of lava, and the head looked more serpentine, around 20 feet tall.

 **Greater fire golem**

 **Lv: 35**

 **Hp: 4100 (+1000) [5100/5100]**

 **Mp: 3750**

 **STR: 45 (+20) [65]**

 **DEX: 30**

 **VIT: 60 (+30) [90]**

 **INT: 25**

 **WIS: 10**

 **LUK: 10**

 **Perks active: Greater golem (+20 STR, +30 VIT, +1000 Hp)**

John glanced at me. "Got a plan for this behemoth?"

"Yep." I nodded. "You pepper it with piercing arrows, I keep him off you, and we can figure the rest as we go."

He shrugged nonchalantly. "You had worse ideas. Let's do this."

I rushed towards the golem, and slashed at its legs. My attack only left a scratch. I jumped back to avoid a kick. One of John's arrows hit it in the chest. It left a hole around 2 inches wide, and 4 inches deep. Its Hp lowered a little bit, so at least that worked somewhat.

I moved in again, and this time used **Acheomensis** to make my attack stronger. This time, I left a noticeable cut on its leg, Hp dropping a little again. I was about to drop the spell, but a giant fist hurtling towards me changed my mind. The hit chipped away a couple hundred of my Hp, and sent me rolling.

I got up, and saw the golem getting peppered with magical arrows. These ones were different, as they seemed to dig far deeper than the first one. I finally noticed the difference: the tips were spinning like drills. Snapping out of my reverie, I added my spells to the mix, with **Blizzard** in one hand and spinning **Wind spears** , which I dubbed **Gale drill** , in the other. Together, we managed to bring the golem to around a quarter of its health.

It let out a gigantic roar, and summoned a wave of fire in every direction. I did the first thing I could think of, and made the **Blizzard** vortex all around me, absorbing the heat and protecting me. Once it died down, I let the icy cloak die down, just to leap away the second after.

The golem had advanced towards me while I was distracted, and tried to squash me. Sword up again, I kept avoiding and dealing attacks. The golem disengages when its Hp got dangerously low. It spat a torrent of fire at me, and I countered with the strongest **Blizzard** I could muster. Our spells kept pushing each other back, but I was losing Mp fast.

Lucky me, John came to my aid, with an overcharged arrow straight in the golem's face. The hit brought its Hp to almost nothing, thus we dealt the final hit. I slashed with all my might its neck, nearly severing the head, when my sword broke. John used me as a spring, and launched himself onto the golem's head, slamming a **Hadouken** into the crack left by me, completely obliterating its head.

 **Battle over!**

 **Killed: Greater fire golem lv:35 (Xp: 20.000)**

 **Total Xp: 20.000**

 **G collected: 15.000**

 **Loot: (x1 Infernis claws) (x1 lava ring)**

 **Nox level up!**

 **Sora level up!**

Just as I closed the pop-up, another took its place.

 **Skill level up!**

 **Acheomensis lv: 4 – 6**

 **Blizzard lv: 13 – 14**

 **Gale drill lv: 1 – 3**

 **Due to straining yourself to keep up with a vastly stronger enemy, you gained 1 VIT!**

 **Due to coming up with a semi-decent strategy, you gained 1 WIS!**

 **Due to many close calls, you gained 1 LUK!**

 **Wind affinity +1!**

 **Ice affinity +3!**

Closing also that one, I sighed. _'Now I've gotta find a new sword. Woo-hoo! Just what I needed…'_ Shaking the negativity outta my head, I checked the loot from the boss.

The claws matched my chestplate quite well, and could be used as secondary weapons, due to the small claws on the fingertips, around an inch long. They went down to my elbow, protecting fully my forearms. The ring, instead, seemed made of gold, with flame-like patterns all around, converging to a small ruby.

I looked to John, who was observing the ring just like me. "Who should take it?"

He gave a noncommittal hum. "Depends on what it does, I guess. Let's **Observe** them."

 **Lava ring (Rare)**

 **An enchanted gold ring. It has flame-like patterns all over.**

 **-50% damage from fire**

 **Grants medium heat resistance**

 **Infernis claws (Unique)**

 **Clawed gauntlets made of steel infused with darkness. They have claws on the fingertips.**

 **+15% unarmed damage**

 **-10% physical damage**

 **+10% darkness boost**

' _Whaaaaaat? Darkness boost?'_ Immediately I checked my chestplate, and of course, it had the same effect, making me facepalm to my idiocy, as I hadn't thought of checking it before. Nonetheless, since my **Blizzard** could easily counter fire, John took the ring for himself, placing it on his middle finger, under his gauntlet.

It was almost midday, so we returned home for lunch. Not much to be said about that. John decided to go check out the small library they had in town, along with Nox. As such, Sora and I went to get myself a new weapon.

The kid was, understandably enough, very excited, as he seemed to have inherited my own love for weaponry. Through his chatter, an idea for my new weapon sprung to mind. I just had to make sure it would be feasible.

Finally, we reached the forge. It was a stout building, made fully of stone, with smoke slowly rising from the top. We entered, and almost immediately I started sweating from the sheer heat coming from the back, most definitely where the forge was located.

"Be right there with ya!" Yelled a loud and gruff voice from the back. Soon, a bulky dragon made his way to us. He was extremely buff, to the point of it being almost ridiculous. His dark red scales were blackened in some points, his head coming just half a foot higher than mine. He was quite short for a (I assumed) middle-aged dragon, but I stilled my tongue.

"Well, would ya look at dat! The talk of the town, right here in me forge!" He let loose a laugh strong enough to almost topple me, then slammed his paw on his chest. "I'm Vulcan. So, what can I do for ya?"

I took a second to right myself. "Yes, right. I'm Daniel, if you didn't know. And this," I pointed to the small wyvern next to me, "is Sora. Now, then." I leaned a little on the counter. "I find myself in need of a new weapon."

Vulcan smiled widely at hearing that. "Why, of course lad! But first, any preferences?"

I tapped my chin in thought. "Well, assuming you know what I'm talking about, I wanted a naginata with a detachable blade, so that it could be used also as a simple sword. You following?"

He nodded slowly, "Ye, I did see a couple of those things. Never made one, but I can. Still, the detaching mechanism will cost ya a lot, since I need to make it very sturdy." He slid me a piece of parchment and a quill with some ink. "Think ya can make a rough sketch of what ya want? We can go on from that."

I picked up the quill and drew what I wanted: the top part was quite similar to a nondescript 1 and 1/2 handed broadsword, although Vulcan acquiesced to my request to make the blade a fiery orange, with the 5 foot and 10 inch pole black. The mechanism was left to Vulcanus's discretion, as I didn't have much knowledge on the subject. After a good amount of haggling, we came to a deal for 5.700 G for all of it.

Bidding Vulcanus farewell, Sora and I started wandering around town aimlessly, trying to find something to do. Suddenly, a stray thought hit me. _'I forgot to enroll Sora and Nox in school!'_ Apparently there was one, since I remembered seeing one during that morning's killing spree. Trying to remember where I had noticed it was, I navigated us through the streets, and luckily my 60+ INT helped me remember the way. It was still open, for whatever reason, so we entered.

The structure was fairly easy to navigate, and soon enough we found who could be considered as the 'headmaster' of the school. The discussion was quite uneventful, so I'll spare you the details. In short, John was supposed to swing by later, to deal with Nox's enrolling, while Sora was good to go, and would start the day after. With that dealt with, we finally left to go home.

On the way we met John with Nox, whom were just done with their own studying. I notified John of what he needed to do, so he backtracked to deal with it. Sora and I, on the other hand, had other plans. Sora and Nox were quite weak compared to me and John, thus I wanted to train them some more. Firstly, they'd need a good fighting strategy, something I was more than willing to provide. Plus, Sora relly needed some better DEX to fight effectively. We were going to fix that.

And thus, another training montage begun...

* * *

 **Well, everyone, I'm back with another chapter. I know it's not much in the way of story, but I really needed to get this out of the way. I apologize for the long wait, but I really didn't have it in me to write this, but it had to be done. Plus, I've been woking on some other projects, both personal and for some new plot bunnies that sprung up in my head. And for those of you that think that the thing with angels and demons and crap like that is a huge cliché, and it is a stupid idea, 1) this is MY story; 2) I have this quite planned out, and this story will span many different worlds. This is barely the tip of the iceberg for what I have planned.**

 **Now, thank you for taking time to read this. Please, review to let me know what you think, follow, favorite, and I'll do my best to come back sooner.**


	9. I need to start over

**Alright guys, I'm really sorry. Xeno here, and… I'm not here with a new chapter. Things happened, and my laptop broke some time ago. About a couple months after the last chapter, or so. Recently I got news that the hard disk completely burned itself, making it so that no data could be recovered. The next chapter had a time skip in it, in which John and Daniel were going to be training a lot, so it required a lot of maths. Needless to say, without my pc almost all my data is gone, and even though I kept character sheets on my phone (which is how I'm writing this)… I had time to think. I don't like how this story is going. There were a lot of plot holes, a lot of random bullshit that I threw in without reason, and in general, when I read it again it was an absolute mess.**

 **So! That's why I decided on cutting off this story and starting it anew! I'll be planning out the plot beforehand, so I know what in the hell I'm doing. After I post this, I'll be posting a poll on my account. Go and vote: do you want me to keep this story online for posterity's sake, or should I just wipe everything off the table and start with a clean slate?**

 **The poll will be on until the 30** **th** **April. If I get no votes at all, I'll just cancel this story and be done with it. That's all, folks! Glad you heard me out.**

 **And no, this isn't a late April's fools. I'm dead serious.**


	10. Poll's up! Info inbound!

**Alright, my people! The poll's closed!**

 **And the results are…**

 **This story will be kept online!**

 **The result was 10 to 2, so it was pretty oblivious.**

 **Now then, the first chapter off the remake is already in the works, so expect it ready for… the 11** **th** **? Yeah, that way I'll also have time to write something extra. My update time will change to every two weeks, on Saturday, that way I'll have time to write longer chapters every time, and since I've simplified my math I should be able to churn out more actual content.**

 **Now, to address certain things:**

 **First, the changes will be on the first chapter of the remake, 'A game of Humans and Dragons'. The Spyro ark will be around… 10 to 15 chapters long, give or take.**

 **Second, I know that at least some people liked having John in the story, lo I'll keep him. He does also serve a purpose plot-wise now, just so you know.**

 **Third, this story will stay as a dead fic from now on, and will be reborn in the section 'Spyro & Anime X-overs'. Of course, I might add more than just anime.**

 **Fourth, if you want Daniel or John to go in a specific world after Spyro's, give me a DM, and I'll add it to a poll I'll make at the end of the ark. That goes for every ark.**

 **Now, if you read all that, give me a #GameBro in the comments! I'll talk you beautiful people again at the beginning of the remake!**

 **Xeno out!**


	11. I'M DONE NOW

**The new version is up! Check on my profile!**

 **Alright, I'm done now.**


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